Blood Steel
by facelesschick
Summary: What if Gendry didn't return to the Inn at the Crossroads when Brienne was taken to meet the Lady? What would he do? What would Arya do if she truly became faceless? My attempt to finish the Gendry/Arya storylines - this plot popped into my head about a year ago and wouldn't let me go. Featuring friendship, revenge, romance, betrayal, prophecy, and legend. First fanfic ever.
1. 1 Prologue

**1\. Prologue: Herren Waters**

* * *

The Queen was dead.

King Tommen had ordered the banners lowered for seven days to honor his mother, but there was precious else to mark the passing of the woman who had once held King's landing under her fist.

Ser Herren Waters had warned his gold cloaks to stay on high alert, because the chance of a riot always rose after the death of a royal, but this morning as he surveyed Fishmonger Square from the City Watch tower on the Sea Wall, nothing seemed amiss. Sailors busily unloaded the morning's catch, beggar boys and cryer girls hawked hot clams from baskets or small carts, and fishwives haggled over the price of spotted bass. At the center of the square farmers sold potatoes, eggs, and vegetables from a makeshift market made of overturned wagons, empty barrels and crates, and lengths of rags hung wooden planks, brooms, and old rusted spears. By the docks a group of Sparrows loaded large burlap sacks onto carts destined for Baleor's sept.

It was a mercy, he thought. Cersei had been found dead three mornings past, wearing one of the course, roughspun gowns that had been her only garb since she returned from Baleor's Sept. For the last eight months she had quietly endured in her small corner of Maegor's Fast, spending most of her time alone with Taena Merryweather, who had returned to the Red Keep only under the condition that she remain Cersei's companion until the day she died. Outside of her cell, Cersei was flanked at all times by two of the Faith Militant, who were under strict orders from the High Septon never to let her converse without supervision, lest she attempt to conceive another plot. She had not spoken alone with King Tommen since her return to the caste. Taena, whose supervision was somewhat less strict than Cersei's, and whose tongue was considerably looser, complained that the Queen rarely slept throughout the night, crying out in turns for Tommen and for Joffrey, for her daughter Mycella, and most of all for her brother Jamie.

"Jaime this, Jaime that, nothing but Jaime, Jamie, Jamie" Taena had snapped at Tommen's last name-day feast. At Tommen's request, Cersei sat at the high table, and Taena been allowed to spend a few hours away from the Queen's side. "You think the slut would shut up about him now that she knows he isn't coming back." Taena blamed Cersei for her imprisonment; she had cried when Cersei's body was taken away, but Ser Waters knew that they were tears of joy.

Jamie had stayed away from King's Landing since his Lord father's funeral. He had plenty of excuses. Jamie kept mainly to Casterly Rock, protecting his house's lands as best he could against the ongoing raids by the Ironborn, and preparing for the winter that was slowly spreading South. (Two weeks ago the Maester at Maidenpool sent a Raven announcing the first frost in the Crownlands). Thanks to him, the Kingdom of the Rock was a relative paradise in the hell that was Westeros.

An uneasy truce between the Tyrells and the Faith Militant had kept the Crownlands at peace but north of the Gods' Eye the kingdom was in chaos. Bolton and Stannis stood at stalemate in the North. Stannis had retreated to Castle Black after Bowen Marsh killed Commander Snow, but rumor had it he was on the march again. Bolton and his Bastard still kept their hold on Winterfell, respectively, but half of the lords in the North took choose to take their entreaties instead to Stannis at the wall, and the other half locked their doors, counted their stores, refused to recognize either. The Freys had claimed every abandoned castle and holdfast in the Riverlands they could lay their hands on, until it seemed that old Walder Frey would live to see every one of his hundred progeny a lord. But the smallfolk had nearly all fled south, leaving the Freys to rule over little more than burned fields and abandoned huts, and their strength was so split that they were easy prey for the ruthless Lady Stoneheart. Rumor had it that the Freys had even started to fight among themselves, and that the Brotherhood was simply picking up the pieces. Everyday more smallfolk came to King's landing, fleeing war, fleeing winter. Queen Margery heard them all in Great Baleor's Sept. She had the silent sisters give them bread, and she told them all the same thing: "Go South. There are yet fields to till, orchards to pick, and rivers to fish. Go South, and build a new life."

Cersei had always been hard. Ser Waters remembered the look on her face as she walked through the stench and muck of high street, as naked and bald as the day she was born. He had been only an ordinary man of the City Watch then, tasked with holding back the crowd. She had kept her chin high, eyes focused ahead, two bright sparks gleaming with hatred and pride, even when she as the smallfolk hit her with rotten fish heads and handfuls of horseshit. She had cried before she entered the Red Keep, but until the last few steps her lips had not trembled.

But as her twin stayed away, Cersei's hardness faded. Dark circles grew under her eyes as her sleepless nights continued, and she grew thin and pale. The cruel smile of the regent became the determined mouth of a suffering woman. He had never seen her look down, but where she used to look at knights like they were dogs and smallfolk like they were vermin, now she looked as if she didn't see anything at all. They said when they found her she had been smiling. Ser Waters had not seen her smile in a year. Strange though. She was broken, yes, but she was not unhealthy; she had barely reached her 35th name day. The maesters said she had died in her sleep. Ser Waters would have suspected poison, but for her position. What could anyone have gained from murdering Cersei Lannister?

Ser Waters shook himself out of his reflection and descended from the wall, heading for the Old Gate. Two of his gold cloaks followed. As he crossed the square the smallfolk scurried out of his way, all save for one orphan boy, performing an elaborate pantomime, stumbling about with his eyes closed atop an overturned cart, an empty wooden cup in one hand. The boy dramatically fell right at Ser Water's feet, opening his eyes two see a swoosh of gold as the commander abruptly stopped. He made a little strangled noise, sprang to his feet and made to run away, but not before Ser Waters gave him a good whelp with the back of his hand. His friends guffawed a few steps away.

As he resumed his walk Ser Waters sighed. The boy was obviously reenacting the death of Ser Meryn, who had fallen to his death from the wall of the Red Keep not three weeks past. They had found him in the morning, his scalp a bloody mess and his white doublet stained red with wine. Lady Olenna had threatened to tear out the tongue of anyone who spread the story of the knight's embarrassing death, yet another shame on the already broken honor of the Kingsguard, but all knew it was an empty threat. There was no way too keep such a story from the smallfolk, who doubtless had already enjoyed many a laugh at the idea of tough Ser Meryn stumbling in his cups. Ser Meryn had not been well loved. Everyone at the Red Keep knew that that the knight had loved to drink, but Ser Waters would never have guessed that the man would find his end at the bottom of a goblet, as they said King Robert had. Rather, Ser Waters had always thought that Meryn used wine to justify cruelty, as an excuse to brawl and sneer and stick his hands up the serving girls' skirts.

It was because of Ser Meryn that Ser Waters now made his way towards the Old Gate. Still technically the Captain of the Kingsguard, Jaime was supposed to administer the oaths for knights initiated into the order, and a raven had been sent to Lannisport immediately after Meryn's death. Lady Olenna had nominated two young knights, Ser Harold Moorwood of House Moorwood, an Arryn's bannerman, and Jysper Reddyne of House Reddayne, an offshoot House Dayne. A messenger had arrived at the Red Keep this morning announcing that Jamie and his retainers were half a days' ride away. At last Cersei's twin had returned to her, thought Ser Waters wryly.

The troop of goldcloaks turned to take the Street of Steel instead of marching straight toward the Muddy Way; Ser Waters had an errand. He climbed the shallow stone steps quickly, ignoring the clatter of hundreds of anvils and the occasional brusque greeting, scanning the shops to his right for the sign of a sword.

"Mott!" he called.

"Who is it?" The master armorer said as he emerged, face black and sooty from the forge. "Oh it's you. Go away. I don't have your swords."

"That won't do, Master Tobho. The City Watch needed them a week ago."

"What would you have me do?" Snapped Tobho Mott. "I haven't got any steel, hell, I've hardly got any ore at all after Tyrion let that damned chain sink into Blackwater Bay, I haven't got any smiths, they've all bloody run off to Dorne, where they say that fool Martell woman is raising an Army, and I haven't got any coin, not after your damned taxes."

Ser Waters frowned, and Mott looked slightly apologetic. "Aye aye, come with me. I've got eight. The ore was so poor, the blades are barely fit to cut my meat, but they'll big enough to fit in a scabbard and sharp enough to scare a thief."

Leaving his men outside Ser waters ducked inside the shop, which was small but well kept. As he entered a boy who looked too small to be a smith's apprentice was pumping the bellows up and down to fan there fire, where a length of metal was heating. "That fire isn't nearly hot enough yet, boy," Mott growled. "You'll earn your keep in my shop." He led Ser Waters to a bench, and unfolded a bundle of brown cloth to reveal eight new swords that glinted dully in the red light. Ser Waters took one and experimentally swung it right and left.

"These will do, Master Tobho. I'll have my men pick them up with the payment we agreed on." To his surprise, the weaponsmith cracked a smile.

"Who'd a guessed," he said, "that Tobho Mott would be the one to figure out how to turn shit into gold." The old man laughed so hard at his joke that a tear leaked from his eye. He waved his hand in dismissal and Ser Waters left the shop.

About an hour after mid-day a member of the watch Ser Jaime rode into King's Landing, the golden lion on a field of red flapping at the front of a his small column. Ser Waters brought his mount up to the right of the knight, five of his men flanking the column to welcome the Captain of the Kingsguard back to the City. Jaime looked troubled, not how a man should look when he arrives in a friendly city after a long journey.

"My Lord," Waters said, hesitant. "I trust that you've heard..."

"About Cersei? I know." Jamie's frown deepened. "I haven't decided if the gods have been cruel or kind to me," he murmured. He gazed straight ahead, seeming not to notice the smallfolk watching him from their stoops as the royal retinue rode by, whispering to each other about the man called Kingslayer. The horses Suddenly Jaime broke into a smile and clapped him on the shoulder with his golden hand. The hit of hard metal on his shoulder had nearly pushed Ser Waters off of his horse, and when he recovered he was red from his ears to his collar.

"And what about you, Ser Herren Houseless? I'm surprised the Tyrells haven't embroidered all of your cloaks with roses yet. Or perhaps they've taught you all who to grow roses out of your arse?" The golden knight laughed, not cruelly.

"You know Waters," he continued. "The strangest thing happened to us on the road. We were attacked by wolves. Have you ever heard of a wolves attacking a column of mounted knights? Their leader an enormous she-wolf who looked as if she had been sent from hell by the stranger himself. I nearly pissed myself. The thought crossed my mind that Jaime Lannister, Captain of the Kingsguard, leader of armies, survivor of nine rebellions, slayer of Kings, was about to be killed by a bunch of stinking dogs. One of them gave me a nasty gash on the leg, and the great bitch dragged Ser Ilyn off his horse and nearly tore him pieces. But they only killed Dunsen in the end; a Clegane man; never liked him much anyway."

"I've heard tale of these wolves aye," Ser Waters said, his shoulder still smarting from the golden slap. "The smallfolk say that no animals are safe, that climb over fences and break into barns, killing cattle, horses, sheep. They come to the city and beg the Faith and the King to hunt them down, but neither the Septon nor the Tyrells will agree to send men."

"Perhaps they are wise," Jaime said, looking blankly ahead again. "There are worse animals than wolves in the woods. Better to spend steel on them." Ser Waters wasn't quite sure what he meant.

They were almost to the Red Keep when Ser Waters heard the shriek. "MURDERER! He killed my boy! He _murdered_ my boy!" Ser Waters reeled his horse around to see a man gaping in surprise in the doorway of a tavern, as a dirty woman with brown hair ran toward him, her finger raised. The man turned and caught Ser Waters dead and the eye; he was pale with thick, dirty blond hair that fell to his shoulders. His eyes widened when he saw Ser Water's gold cloak, and he turned to run, but instead tripped over a a few empty sacks piled by the tavern doorway.

Ser Waters was beside him in a second in a second, holding his dagger to his throat. He yanked him up and walked him to the middle of the street, his gold cloaks blocking off the smallfolk, one of them catching his mount. "MURDERER!" The woman screamed again. "Kill him! In the name of the King!"

Jaime drew his horse up beside the man. "My my my. Murderer you are, I have no doubt," he said, dismounting. "But more importantly, a traitor. You were due back in Lannisport six months ago, and Ser Desmond and Ser Robin were due at the Wall. Instead I hear that they've fled to Lys. Decided that a bit of gold in your pocket would be better than your duty, didn't you?"

"My lord.. you mistake.." the man rasped. Ser Waters was annoyed at Ser Jamie for interfering; keeping order on the streets was his job. "Is this your man, Ser?" he said brusquely.

"Why yes, this is Raff the Sweetling. Sellsword. Traitor. Most likely murderer. Pray tell madam, how did your son meet his death?" Jamie said, rounding his horse toward the woman.

"Stabbed in a tavern," the she sniffed. "Garren weren't doing nothing wrong, I swear it. Just minding his'self, and got a knife in the back fer 'is trouble. He should hang, hang high!"

Ser Waters shoved the prisoner to the nearest member of the City Watch and drew himself up to his full height, stepping into the middle of the street. "Did you see him die, woman?"

"No but-"

"That's very well madam, but the King's justice demands a witness. You loved your son very much, I'm sure, but that's not enough to hang a man. He's under my arrest, and he will stand trial if we can find a witness."

The woman began to protest, but Jamie cut her off.

"There's no need for a trial, Ser Waters," he said. "Sweeting is my man, and I've the right to decide justice in his case. Now let's get it over with and get to the Keep. I could use a bath," Ser Jamie said.

Ser Waters started to stammer, but couldn't think of anything to say. He could feel the eyes of the smallfolk and his men boring into his back. He could feel his face growing red. He barked "Kneel" and drew his blade. Raff the Sweetling twisted and tried to escape, but the gold clock holding him hit him on head with the handle of his sword and forced him down, holding him with the help of another. Raff let out a strange, soft scream as Ser Waters brought down his sword.

* * *

 ****NOTES**

 **That's chapter 1! It's terribly boring and probably confusing. Did you get that Arya's list is now decimated? Cersei, Meryn, Dunsen, Raff... Ilyn got a pass, because I kind of feel sorry to the silent bloke. Note that I wrote this before the WoW chapter came out and decided to keep it. The question is, who is Arya?**


	2. 2 Gendry

**2\. Gendry**

* * *

Looking back, he decided that it had all started with Brienne. He had put a spear through Biter minutes minutes before the Brotherhood patrol he'd been expecting arrived at the Inn, and next thing he knew they were escorting a barely conscious, fully armored woman to that walking nightmare, Lady Stoneheart. He'd peeled off as soon as he was sure Brienne would make it (Biter's damage was grotesque) to return to the children and the Inn, but something made him turn around. Call it instinct. Call it experience. Even though Brienne had heroically defended a strategic Brotherhood holding from the Bloody Mummers, nearly losing her own life in the process, her sword bore a Lannister sigil, and Gendry knew too well what that meant to the Lady.

And sure enough, when he'd arrived at the Brotherhood's camp, Brienne and her squire where hanging from a tree. The boy was already dead, but when Brienne saw him and screamed his name (he realized later that she'd actually said "Renly") against the choke of the rope, something in him snapped. He had cut her down with his recently forged longsword, and let his anger at Lady Stoneheart, at these men who called themselves knights, atdesolation of the Riverlands, at the pointlessness and the pain of the constant conflict, burst forth. To his surprise, instead of hanging him beside Brienne's lifeless squire, the Brotherhood had listened.

Lady Stoneheart hissed and grimaced (if it was possible for her face to become more gruesome) but at some point slunk back and shut up, becoming, for once, a true shadow. He thinks it was when he started talking about the Night's Watch, where he had been meant to end up when he left King's Landing, and how it was wrong that only bastards and theives took the black while criminals like the Brotherhood roamed the countryside. To make up for their misdeeds, all of them, himself included, should go North. There at least there was a real enemy.

After his speech Thoros bowed before the Lady and asked for her command. "Snow," she croaked. "North."

And so the Brotherhood prepared to march North. Gendry, feeling stupid and somewhat hypocritical, asked the Lady for permission to take the children South before marching North, a move he'd realized some months ago was necessary for their safety, and survival. Lady Stoneheart not only granted his request, but told him to choose a handful of men to form an escort. Gendry sheepishly asked those he knew best: Lem, Anguy, Edric. The Lady did not speak of her again, but Gendry understood that Brienne, broken, bitten, and still lying in a breathless heap under the noose, would also join their party.

—

Moving South was slow going. All in all, nearly thirty children had taken up residence at the Inn. The oldest, nearly 14, was Willow, and the youngest not yet three. The youngest children were either carried by one of the adults, or took turns riding on top of their four heavily laden horses. During the day Anguy, Lem, and Willow led the older children to hunt small game and gather what edible things they could find in the woods, and they met camp at dusk with their haul. The others had no choice but walk on the main road; the secret ways that Anguy and Lem knew were too difficult for the children to manage at any reasonable pace. At Edric's suggestion, both he and Gendry hid their weapons and adopted the rough dress of Septons of the Smith, on the hope that hostile strangers would let their innocent and impoverished party pass. Jeyne had stitched together a lumpen shift for Brienne, who now most closely resembled a rabid brown bear and only upon close inspection recognizable as a woman. She kept her face wounds wrapped with strips from an old bedsheet at the Inn; they were so gruesome that even Gendry looked away when she changed them at night.

At first Brienne was silent and Gendry worried that the death of her squire and Biter's attack had scarred more than her face. During their frequent stops (necessary to accommodate the younger children) Brienne sat silently, staring into the distance, or, at night, into the fire. They had been forced to leave most of her armor behind - it was too heavy for the laden horses, and did not fit with their devout disguise. She had raised no objection, and seemed to have even forgotten her sword until Gendry pressed it into her good hand. The other arm, splintered by Biter, was slung against her chest. The children called her names behind her back and sometimes added her to their make-believe games, draping torn bits of shirt over their eyes, but never dared approach her while she sat.

Anguy, on the other hand was a favorite. He let the little ones hang on his shoulders and pull his hair, and at night he was surrounded on all sides by sleeping children, and Lem, always close by, shared some of his popularity. At first the children were impressed with Edric because he was a lord, but they soon started calling him names just like Brienne, and despite is most fervent efforts, they never listened to anything the former squire had to say. Gendry they revered, and rushed to do whatever he told them too, no matter how tired they were at the end of the day, or how distasteful the task. He got them moving in the morning, and directed the set up of camp at night. Unconsciously the adults also began to look to him for direction, until gradually he became the unquestioned leader of the group.

Gendry had worried that Jeyne would continue to moon over him on the road (Anguy and Lem had found an opportunity to tease him about it every time they'd stopped at the Inn), but almost immediately after the start of the journey she shifted her attention to Edric. She walked as close to him as she could on the road, and she begged stories from every night after dinner and before sleep. Gendry suspected that she mainly liked to listen to his high-born accent and imagine that she might some day become the Lady of Starfall. Edric remained as stiff and proper as ever, but seemed to like the attention. Jeyne also listened compassionately to his complaints (carrying children all day long exhausted him) and vehemently scolded the children who called him names and tried to land sticks in his golden hair.

Walking tired out the children long before it tired out Gendry, who was used to long hours pounding iron in the forge. Anguy and Lem too, came in each evening exhausted from the hunt, and Jeyne and Edric were content to sit by the fire and talk in low solemn voices. Gendry, full of restless energy, started to do exercises with the longsword he had forged for himself at night, trying to remember how Arya had moved with her sticks and her tiny sword those two long years ago. Every once in a while one of the older children would remind him of her, but then he'd remember that she'd been Willow's age, and that Willow was nearly a woman. Not that it mattered, he thought, as she was dead. But even long after he'd accepted that fact with reason, he still hoped that one day she'd come wandering into the Inn as so many orphans had before her. Not that she was an orphan, technically. He shuddered to think that that _thing_ had been Arya's mother.

After a couple nights of pathetic swiping at the air alone (that the children nonetheless watched with respect,) Brienne spoke up. "It's a sword not a hammer, boy. You won't get anywhere slicing down like that. You want to push it forward, and use the strength in your chest, not your arms, to move it."

Gendry couldn't help but stare. That was the most he'd heard Brienne say since before she had fought Biter. He adjusted his movements and looked to her for more instruction; she nodded and told him how to change his grip. It soon became a nightly ritual. At first she only observed and instructed, and Gendry did his best to comply. After a few nights she began to grudgingly show him some exercises with her left hand, borrowing his sword. "Good balance," she'd grunted, seeming somewhat surprised. Gendry felt proud; it wasn't quite a proper sword, because he'd had to scrounge for metal, but he remembered Tobho Mott's methods well.

One night, when Brienne seemed in a better mood than usual, she told him to get ready for a spar. "Practice swords would be better of course, but we haven't those, so we'll have to skip to the real thing. You can't learn to fight without doing some fighting. I'm no expert with my left, and so we should be an even match."

In their first bout, Gendry won three out of five. "You won't lose on strength boy, at least you have that," she had said after they broke, rubbing her left arm as best she could with her still broken right. "Keep at it and learn to pick up your step and you could be a contender." Gendry smiled and wiped the sweat from his hair, and winked at the children who had assembled to watch. He knew Anguy, Lem, Jeyne, and Edric were watching too as they dozed by the dying fire.

The next night they sparred again, and afterwards he spared with Edric, who, to his surprise, he beat handily. Anguy and Lem teased Edric mercilessly all the next day and that night Edric joined Gendry in his exercises, noticeably embarrassed. When he lost again and Anguy started to sing of the "Knight of the Dayne who ne'er deigned to win," Edric challenged him to a match, cheeks crimson. "Oh know, Sir Deign, I'm good enough with a bow to save my arse, I've need any of that swordplay," Anguy said, chuckling. "You young things keep along," Lem added before beginning to sing a bawdy tune.

Edric continued to lose (although Gendry did let him win a few times, when it seemed like his morale was fading) and Brienne, while improving considerably herself with her left, did not improve as fast as Gendry. Brienne and Edric also joined Gendry's exercises, Brienne first with her left arm, and then slowly with her right as it began to heal. Their group of three was swelled by ten or so of the older children, although if Gendry caught any of them dragging behind the next day he'd send them to bed the next night before practice began.

After sparring, Gendry finally worked up the courage to ask what he'd been wanting to ask every since he'd seen her draw her weapon to fight the Brave Companions at the Inn. "This is my old master's work, alright," he told Brienne after examining the blade. "You can see it where the blade connects to the hilt, he always notches it just so. His signature, you could say." The bade was well-made but eerie, embedded with unnatural ripples of red and black. "I've never seen him make a sword like this however. He likes clean blades - this isn't his style. But the steel… it's Valryian, isn't it? I've never seen it this close."

Brienne nodded. "It and another were forged from the Greatsword of House Stark. Her name is Oathkeeper," Brienne croaked. "But my oath is broken. I promised Lady Catlyn that I would find her daughters, but that monster has no daughters. They are dead, wherever they are, or should hope they are dead, and my oath is dead with them."

Gendry looked at her, and she turned away from his burning blue eyes to look at the fire. "I knew Arya. We all did," he said, motioning at the other men, nodding off across the fire. "She was… brave. She was young, she made mistakes, and she was stupid sometimes —" he chuckled, remembering her in the acorn dress and her attempts to fight various members of the Brotherhood, including himself — "but she was brave, and she had a good heart. If she were alive, she wouldn't be mother, at least, I hope not. Her sister… I never met her, but I'm sure she'd be the same. If I find her — Arya — if I find either of them, I would keep them safe."

Gendry looked at Brienne, and if he hadn't known her better he'd have thought she was crying.

"Take it," she said. "Give me your sword. Take Oathkeeper. My oath is broken."

On the other side of the fire, Lem began to hum:

"And how she smiled and how she laughed,

The maiden of the tree

She spun away and said to him,

'No featherbed for me

I'll wear a gown of golden leaves,

and bind my hair with grass,

But you can be my forest love

and me your forest lass.'"

—

They encountered surprisingly few people on the road south to King's Landing. About once a day a family fleeing the war-torn Riverlands, carrying as many of their possessions as they could, passed their crawling children's parade. Some of them looked hungrily at the the four laden horses, often sporting the leftovers of last night's kill, but no one tried to take it, and many thanked Gendry and Edric for performing such a pious deed. One farmwife was moved to tears at the sight of the children, and kissed Gendry's false Septon's cloak, crying that he was a great man. Her daughter mummured that her little brother had recently died, and dragged her mother back to the old farmer husband and their donkey.

The most tense encounter on the first leg of their journey was with a four Sparrows who were riding from the Saltpans to King's Landing. Their leader looked suspicously at Brienne and Edric, who despite two weeks on the road and a roughspun cowl still looked like a high born. But after taking a second look at Gendry's bulk and hefty smith's arm, and at the hordes of children, decided whatever this band was wasn't worth their trouble. A few days later a liveried troupe of soldiers rode up the road on some sort of crown business (although given the anarchy in the Riverlands, Gendry couldn't imagine what) and halted briefly at their group. Gendry had only gotten halfway through his false story when one of the children tugged at the soldier's boot and said "Plase sir, somting to eat? My belly's hungry." The soldier gave the child a look of disgust and motioned to his soldiers to ride on.

It was true, the children were hungry. There was barely enough food to be found at the Inn at the Crossroads, and on the road it was even worse. Mealtimes became a point of tension, where the adults fought to make sure the neediest children were fed, as well as the hunters, who needed their strength to bring more to the table the next night. Despite their best efforts, every night a handful of children went without food, and even Gendry could feel himself getting weaker. It wasn't long before a couple of children fell sick. They buried the first, a four year old girl who'd been called Mary, just off the road near Antlers.

When they'd set out from the Brotherhood camp they'd vaguely planned to bypass King's Landing and take the Roseroad west towards Highgarden and the Reach, which was still at peace and more importantly, producing food. Gendry knew too well what life if the capital was like for an orphan, and without family or a protector he guessed half of the children would be dead or worse within the year. Edric had said there was a motherhouse in Cider Hall; he hoped that when they arrived, the Septas would take the children in.

By the time they'd reached King's Landing they barely had enough gold to buy few sacks of gruel. The number of travelers on the road had doubled close to the capital, and most nights Anguy and Lem would only rejoin them after dark, so as not to arouse suspicion. At a crowded campsite Willow returned late one evening with several loaves of bread and some dried meat she'd pinched from a merchant several miles down the road. Gendry was furious. "That was stupid, Willow, stupid! When they wake up the first thing they'll do is look for who took them. We can't run! We can't hide!" Willow had cried and run to Jeyne who glared at Gendry. Sure enough in the morning the armed party of traders came stumbling angrily into camp, and Gendry gave them his best Septon's apology and begged them to accept their last silver piece as payment.

When they were clear of King's Landing Gendry began to breathe easier, although another child, a boy of five, had succumbed to a chill caught on the and was buried at the fork towards the Reach. Gendry poured his frustration, at the pace, and the lack of food, and the steadily deteriorating condition of the party into his nightly exercises. One night he swung so angrily that the nearly sheered off Edric's arm, who refused to spar for several nights after that. Some things were getting better; the weather was slightly warmer, although still unseasonably chilly for the South, and land was becoming noticeably more prosperous. Jeyne and some of the more pathetic looking children went to beg for food at any inhabited structure they came across, and where before they had usually returned with nothing, now they started to come back with a wedge of cheese, or clothful of oats, or once, an invitation to milk the farmer's three cows and stay the night in his barn.

Five days away from King's Landing they were stopped by eight armed, mounted Sparrows, the leader of whom bore the mark of the order of King's Landing, a circle and a cross branded onto his foreheads.

"Who goes there?" said the leader.

"We are refugees from the Riverlands, your holiness," said Gendry, adopting his best commoner's submissive attitude, although he knew seemed ridiculous when put on by someone of his size. "My brother and I are escorting these children to the motherhouse at Cider Hall, the Smith help us."

"Why did you not bring these children to the halls of the High Sparrow in King's Landing?" The leader asked again, eyeing the children. His high holiness is always in need of servants." He walked over to Willow and grabbed her chin, leaning over to leer at her. As he bent, Gendry saw that the mark on his foreheard was not a true brand after all, but instead a shallow cut, emphasized with some sort of dye. The two of the other men had moved to inspect the horses, that carried what little food and supplies remained to them. Several of the children started crying.

"Ha! It's a woman!" said one of the men, poking Brienne in the face as if she were a mule. He waved his friend over and said "now that's a right cow isn't it? It'd be something to fuck that, wouldn't it?" Gendry noticed, and just about the same time the Sparrow inspecting her did, that she had hidden the iron longsword in the folds of her dress. He reached inside his cowl for Oathkeeper just as she raised her sword both hands and decapitated her admirer, and then his friend. Gendry thrust Oathkeeper into the leader's stomach and whirled around to parry a blow and then disarm a fourth man; Edric, a beat behind, fumbled for his own blade in his cowl and ran bravely to encounter a fifth; instead of fighting the brave Knight however, the man fled, his four remaining companions with them.

"His Holiness, my ass," said Brienne, cradling her bad arm.

They gained three horses from the squabble and three purses of gold, taken from the leader's belt, whose Sparrow's getup had apparently proved profitable. In the next town Gendry sold two of the horses, and for the first time in weeks every child ate.

—

Two weeks later, nearly two months after they had set out from the Inn at the Crossroads, more than double the time it would have taken an average band of travelers, they reached Cider Hall. The motherhouse was large - one of the largest in Westeros, with a capacity for nearly one hundred sisters. The Septas were far from pleased to have another thirty mouths to feed, but their order demanded hospitality towards orphans, and they too had not been untouched by the game of thrones; many of the sisters had left for King's Landing to join the High Sparrow's movement, and they were having trouble bringing in the harvest in their fields in the back. They were also happy to have a few strong men to help with repairs and a smith to mend tools and hinges and such, and Gendry, who found he missed the forge, was happy to oblige. Edric valiantly promised to send the good sisters two chests of gold from Starfall; as he hadn't been home for more than three years, and wasn't likely to return anytime soon his promise was empty.

It was a stolen season, a strange time of peace after so many years of war. Gendry couldn't remember being so happy, spending his days in the little toolshop next to the large field of wheat, at the village forge, or sparring with Brienne. In the evenings he drank fermented cider and sang silly songs with Anguy and Lem, often joined by a few of the younger sisters who would scurry away at the sound of an approaching footstep, for fear of the High Septa. But his restlessness only grew, and with it a sense of guilt; he knew it was time to go North. When Brienne, disfigured but fully healed, announced that she was leaving for Lannisport, Gendry told Edric, Anguy and Lem to pack their things.

On their last evening, Gendry knocked on Brienne's door, a door that led to one of the sister's simple cells. The large woman was packing her few things, necessities largely acquired at Cider Hall, into her saddlebags. When Gendry entered she motioned to the stool in the corner and herself sat on the bed. Instead of sitting, Gendry carefully unbuckled his sword belt and knelt before her, offering Oathbreaker.

"My Lady, you gave me this on the road, but over the last months I have come to realize that I cannot accept such a gift. Please take it, the sword is yours."

Brienne considered him, his head bent and sword outstretched, but did not hesitate when she replied. "No, my choice was right. The sword is yours. You will return it to the North, where it belongs, and you will keep my oath better than I could."

Gendry nodded thoughtfully. He rebuckled his sword belt and sat back on the little stool.

"Do you remember…" he began hesitantly, looking out the window, "… what you said to me when we met, at the Inn, in the forge?"

"I said you were a Baratheon. One of King's Robert's bastards, I thought. Now I am sure of it."

Gendry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I knew it," he said. "I think I always knew it. When I was a boy working in Tobho Mott's shop, Jon Arryn came to visit me, and then Eddard Stark. They both died soon after. It was bad luck, I thought, to think such things. And then the gold cloaks came looking for me on the road, and I decided to stay as far away from…it…as I could. Can I do that?" He looked up at Brienne and once again she was struck by the blueness of his eyes.

Brienne shook her head slowly. "You can't escape your parentage, no matter how far you fly. You can choose to ignore it, and you can hide from it, but you can't escape from it."

"What does it mean, then?"

Brienne looked at him carefully. "It means that men will follow you. You can fight; you have your father's natural gift for war, and his charisma. But where he was rash you are constant. You are kind, like Renly" — Gendry noticed her wince slightly — "and your friends love you for it. But where he was soft you are firm. You are stubborn, like Stannis, but while he is inflexible, you can bend."

Gendry flushed. He had never heard such high praise - except perhaps from a child. The closest Arya had ever gotten to complimenting him was "stubborn." And to hear this from Brienne, who hardly ever spoke well of anyone, except for Renly, and whom Gendry had come to deeply respect over the last several months — it meant a lot.

"You can hide from your father, Gendry, but I hope you don't. Westeros needs a man like you, and the North more than anywhere." Brienne now turned away to look at the dying light through the window, and Gendry knew it was time to go.

"Thank you, my lady," he said. "For everything."

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

* * *

 ****NOTES**

 **This is the chapter that fills in what happens to Gendry between saving Brienne and the real start of this story, and because it needs to cover a lot of ground it's a bit awkward. Still a lot of important things happen to Gendry. He becomes a leader - kind of defacto - he learns to fight good - and he comes to terms a bit about his heritage. Plus Gendry / Brienne action is fun. Sorry for typos / logical errors, I wrote this whole story quickly because it needs to get out of my head!**


	3. 3 No One

**3\. No One**

* * *

He was different now.

Where there had been a boy, now there was a man, tall, broad, and strong. His black hair was still the same, though dirty, but underneath it was a coarse dark beard that nearly covered his red mouth and ran a few inches down his neck. His right arm was significantly bigger than his left, although both were large, and on the front of his roughspun tunic she could see the faint outline of a concealed scabbard. The back of his neck and his nose were badly sunburned, and his boots were worn from riding and caked with dried mud; she didn't know how long he had been there, but he had come from the south.

He carried a couple of sacks over his shoulder, clearly trying to pass for a farmer in town to buy seed. (He wasn't doing a good job, she thought. Any decent farmer would have already stocked up on seed - winter was coming, and the further the season ran from summer, the more expensive seed would get). He kept his eyes downcast, and stooped unnaturally to avoid drawing attention to himself (Another failure; it was impossible not to notice a man that large.) When he looked up, she saw that they were a piercing blue.

She remembered.

By his side was a boy - no, a man, delicately built but not overly short, with neat golden hair - she knew this man too, she thought. Yes, she knew him. There was another pair across the square that they were moving with, although clearly trying to seem separate; she knew this other pair too, the skinny man with the red hair and the hunter's crossbow, and his dirty, yellow-haired companion, carrying a skein of pelts for market. She watched the yellow-haired man hawk the pelts to an indifferent merchant, while the red-haired man skillfully slit his purse before following the other pair as they went to the food market.

There was something about the lines on his face, she thought. Before he had been young - no, innocent, and hid face had had few lines. It had been a serious face, even a stubborn one, but a hopeful one. Now she saw anger, years of it, etched on his brow, and experience - no, authority. He led the man at his side, where once he had followed. And something else; not stubbornness exactly; determination.

She followed, and she watched.

He bought dried meat from the butcher, a wedge of cheese from the dairy man, and several sacks of lentils and oats from the dry goods merchant. As he bent to make sure the lentils had no worms, she caught a glimpse of gold by his collarbone, where the ill-concealed sword stuck up. No, it can't be, she thought.

The dry-goods man liked dogs, and his dogs liked to play. She sent one running after a bone at the right moment and the man tripped, cursing as his lentils spilled out onto the street. As she'd hoped, the sword fell forward with him, and she caught a glimpse of the hilt before the he hastily stuffed it back inside his shirt, looking clumsily around to see if anyone had noticed. It was the same; gold lions with rubies for eyes carefully wrapped around the cross, and the sturdy grip of a longsword with another large ruby inlaid at the end.

She would have kept following, but they came to her.

* * *

 ****NOTES**

 **we all know who Arya was in this one. but who is everyone else?**


	4. 4 Gendry

**4\. Gendry**

* * *

"More mud!" shrieked Anguy, digging his fingers in the dirt.

"Wah - no - stop - I'm dirty enough already!" Gendry yelled, standing up too quickly from where he had been folding his bedroll and backing away from Anguy. "Stop, I mean it…"

Splat.

"Alright, that's it." Gendry bent and scooped a handful of mud himself. There was plenty of it, as it had rained the day before and the horses had turned up the land around the campsite. "You'd better run!"

He chased Anguy around the remnants of last night's fire and then around the horses, before lobbing the mud as hard as he could and hitting… Edric, right in the back of the neck. Anguy promptly fell down laughing.

"Aaahhh! Get if off! Get it off!" squealed Edric, to Anguy's continued delight. Edric started hopping around and pawing at the mud dripping down the back of his neck, but Lem was quicker. He clapped his hand right over the mud cake and dragged it up through the youth's golden hair, before giving him a friendly tussle.

"There, now you look quite the little lording," Lem said, smiling at his work. Anguy took advantage of the distracting scene to sprinkle more mud on Gendry's hair, dancing away from his reactive swipe.

"And you, my Prince," said Lem, mock-bowing low before Gendry, his faded yellow cloak outstretched, "You are the spitting image of royalty."

Last night around the fire Gendry had finally revealed his true parentage to his three comrades. When he had finished, all three had stared at him quietly, and then Lem had burst out laughing and immediately begun to compose a new song about the bastard Prince, with Anguy in accompaniment, and begun addressing him as "My Prince" ever since. Gendry had felt relieved; he'd been worried things would change. Later that night, however, when Anguy and Lem had begun to doze, Edric came to him and solemnly swore fealty; Gendry told him to get up and stop being ridiculous, as he'd never been recognized and his father wasn't even king anymore.

They were half a day's ride from King's Landing, where they were planning to purchase furs, provisions, and other necessities for their journey North. As nearly three years had passed since the gold cloaks came looking for him on the Kingsroad and the Lannisters no longer held sway in the Red Keep, Gendry doubted that anyone was still looking for Baratheon bastards; they had even heard a rumor on the road yesterday that the Cersei was finally dead. Still, he thought, resisting the urge to shake the dirt out of his hair, taking precautions couldn't hurt.

To rouse minimal suspicion, they had decided to split into pairs; Anguy and Lem would pose as hunters, and Gendry and Edric as farmers, both come for the markets of King's Landing.

"I don't see why you aren't putting dirt in your hair," said Edric sorely.

"That's because we, my dear Starfall, are born natural commoners," Anguy said with a grand gesture. "We don't need a disguise to be what we are!"

"Now remember," Lem added, "don't look up too much, and try to look stupid."

"Mph," said Edric.

"Alright, alright," Gendry said good naturedly. "We're dirty, we've got the right clothes, now let's go! Remember, plan is to meet at the Dancing Dove at sundown. Me and Edric will get the food, Anguy and Lem the goods, and if all goes well we can get out of the city tomorrow." As a meetup Gendry had chosen a large, bustling tavern on the opposite side of the city from the Red Keep and the street of steel - there he would have the least chance of being recognized.

After he tucked Oathbreaker down his shirt, securing the bottom of the scabbard in his belt, he and Edric mounted and started off; Anguy and Lem would follow a few miles behind, both of them joining the long queue of commoners headed towards King's Landing's markets. The ride was brief; Edric, who seemed relieved to be out of the company of Anguy and Lem, talked about his week long visit to King's Landing many years before, where he had joined up with Lord Beric to become his squire before heading to the Riverlands. Listening to him talk, Gendry couldn't help feeling a bit nostalgic for Tobho Mott's shop. He now understood why he'd had to leave to join the Yoren's group, although he hadn't at at the time. When the old master smith had gruffly told him to pack up; he'd been surprised, and hurt. He had thought himself to be the best apprentice in Mott's shop, and he couldn't understand why he had been so unceremoniously dismissed. On the road, with Arya and Hot Pie and Lommy and the others, he had refused to think of home, and before long stubbornness became habit.

They reached the city and passed through the Western Gate around noon. They made their purchases easily — except for that incident with the dog — using silver that Gendry had earned for some simple ironwork in Cider Hall. Anguy and Lem had assured him that they didn't need gold to complete their purchases. "We'll manage," Lem had said, throwing him a large wink. Gendry frowned at that, but there wasn't much else to do. Edric had offered to see if he could borrow on the credit of the Lord of Starfall, but they had all agreed that such a move would be too risky, as the Lord of Starfall was a known associate of the notorious Brotherhood.

King's Landing was just the same, Gendry thought. There had been a siege, and a riot, and the battle Blackwater bay, and two different Kings, but so far King's Landing had seemed like the same, except for the tall blackened spike where the Tower of the Hand had stood. "Good riddance," the leather merchant had said when he'd noticed Gendry staring at the former tower. Gendry had asked him what he meant, and the old man had burst out in a guffaw. "You don't know?" he said. "She's dead - that bitch of a Lannister, who burned the tower. Died in her sleep a week ago. Her sleep! Too bad it wasn't a beheading, I say."

She was dead. Not that Gendry had been afraid of Cersei. He They'd heard about the Sparrows at Cider Hall, and he knew that Cersei had no power to harm him anymore. But still he felt relieved, knowing that the woman who'd wanted him dead was no more.

"You go on ahead to the Dove, Edric," said Gendry when their bags were full.

"What? Why? What are you going to do? Remember what we said - what you said about the staying hidden. What if someone recognized you?" Edric said.

"I'll be careful, Ed!" said Gendry. "It's been more than two years. Besides, I never left Mott's shop before that— and Tobhoo wouldn't turn me in, he sent me North to keep me safe. And Cersei is dead!"

"Still—"

"Look, here, give me that—" said Gendry, grabbing a thick fur cloak they had purchased earlier and tying it on, throwing the hood up over his face. "There, I could be anybody."

"Anybody who's six foot six," grumbled Edric. "If Lem and Anguy ask, I'm telling them you gave me the slip."

"They won't care! Go get an ale!" Gendry laughed, turing away.

It was nearly dark now and the streets of King's Landing were emptying out. There were fewer people about than he remembered, but he knew that there wasn't any formal curfew anymore. Still, when he saw a band of robed brothers walking his way he made a sharp turn. He took the back way to the Street of Steel, where he was least likely to run into company.

When he emerged from the alleys he was a few houses up from Mott's shop. He sighed when he saw the familiar way. Next to him the workshop Job Rhent, the ironsmith, who mainly mended tools; beside that Petveil Strang, the silversmith; and, the Havier Adan, the goldsmith from Dorne. And there was Tohbo's shop, just as he remembered it, with the small, weathered sign of the sword hanging above the shop. He'd been ashamed of that sign when he'd worked here, he remembered; he'd wanted Tobho to get a new one painted, like the elaborate block that hung above Strang's door, with accents in real silver. Tobho had laughed. "They already know I'm the best boy. I don' wanna rub it in," he'd said.

The door to Mott's shop was closed, as he'd expected, but someone had nailed several boards across the door frame. That was strange. While he was standing there a couple of boys ran past, each perhaps around six or seven. "You there" he called, and they both halted in their tracks. "Does Master Tobho still smith here?" he asked

One boy ran off without answering but the other paused, and then in a small voice replied. "He's dead, Ser. Had a fit. Three days ago." Then he ran off after his companion.

Gendry sighed. His master had been old. At least he had met with a peaceful death, he thought. Or as peaceful as one could expect in Westeros these days. He wouldn't be able to see him one last time, but perhaps that was for the best. He turned and walked back to the alley.

* * *

The Dancing Dove was nearly full to the brim. Anguy and Lem were right in the center, and from the looks of them, several cups in. Anguy was flirting with a woman who was probably a whore, and Lem had a serving wench on his knee, who was holding the pitcher of ale just out of his reach.

"Another lass, another for this old—ah, brother!" he yelled, spotting Gendry and in his gesture of welcome accidentally knocked the serving girl off his knee, who nimbly leaped off without spilling any ale, and walked to the next table to serve another customer. "How do you fare? Ah no, girl, come back, come back here!" Lem said leaning forward with his cup and another copper piece. She obligingly sashayed over and refilled his cup.

"Aye he's a handsome one, isn't he?" she said, looking Gendry up and down. Noting the mud still clinging to his hair she added, "I like 'em dirty," with a wink. Gendry blushed slightly. The girl wasn't exactly what you'd call pretty. She was short but slender, and moved gracefully with her pitcher. Her hair was a yellowish-brown, her skin pale with a spattering of freckles, and her eyes small but intelligent. Her smile, while pleasant, lopsided. He guessed she was about six-and-ten. "I'm Kyra," she announced, sticking out her free hand.

"Gen," Gendry grunted.

"And I'm Ned," Edric piped up. He was sitting on the other side of the table and Anguy and Lem were ignoring him, like always.

"Well milords, I'll be right back with two more cups—that is, of course, assuming you can pay."

Kyra returned quickly and Gendry downed his first cup watching the woman Anguy was flirting with repeatedly insist she was not a whore, while she accepted copper pieces Anguy was pressing one by one into her hand.

When Kyra returned to refill their cups, she sat down next to Gendry (Lem clearly forgotten) and began to shamelessly flirt with Edric, who was getting redder and redder as the night went on, though from the ale or from the attention he could not tell.

"Now tell me, are you two going north with those good looking men there as well?" She asked casually after some minutes. Gendry stiffened unintentionally and she continued mockingly, "O Seven save me, is that a secret? It is my business to notice, you know. Or it was. My family, you see, is from the North - we used to trade in furs, made it up and down the Kingsroad four times in a year! And when I see a couple of rough lads with their sacks full of furs and tack…" she nodded at the Lem's and Anguy's purchases, which were sagging open under their feet "…and a couple more with a month's supply of food…" she nudged Gendry's foot, that lay next to his bag playfully…"I know where they're going, yessir I do."

"Where are you from?" said Edric dreamingly. Gendry decided the ale really must be going to his head.

"Me?" said Kyra. "I was born in a little tiny town closer to Castle Black than to Winterfell. That's where my mum was from. But the truth is I haven't lived there for more than a month since I was younger than four—been on the road since then. The whole North is my home! and the South too. I know that route better than anyone, I suspect, and not just the Kingsroad neither. In the last few years, after Robb Stark called himself King of the North, it because to unsafe to use the main road, so we went back ways, ways my father knew, that my family's known since before the Kingsroad was built."

She directed her speech at Edric, but under the table she had slipped one of her feet out of clogs and was nudging at Gendry's leg, gradually higher until he felt himself start to get aroused and shoved her foot off with one hand. "I've been trying to make it back there, actually - been saving up for a horse and tack, almost have enough. Well I've got to go, but I'll come back." And she kissed Edric on the ear and went off to fill the other customer's cups.

"Say, Gen—" started Edric, "Say Gen—" he was really slurring now. "You know what, it'd be real useful to have a girl like that with us. I mean we know the Riverlands alright…" he motioned Lem and Anugy, "but none of us have ever been North o' there, and a girl like that, she could be real useful."

"She told us the same thing earlier," Lem added from across the table. "Asked us to take us with her, in fact. I couldn't tell if she was joking, since I've never heard of a maiden, questionable virtue or no, volunteering to join a company of strange on the road. I asked if she was a whore and she said she'd thought about it but decided it was too much work. lmagine that!'"

"Speaking of whores!" Anguy said. A group of women wearing faded, garish gowns and painted faces had just entered the tavern. Because the Sparrows had taken to burning brothels, the proprietor was quickly ushering them out - but from the large group of men who got up to follow them it was clear their visit had not been in vain.

"I mean, the way I figure, if we just spent five months escorting a bunch of brats to safety for charity, the least we can do is take on a friendly wench who knows the way."

Gendry frowned. He'd wanted to skip King's Landing entirely, but they did need to restock and there was no where they could have done it more easily than here. Now to change plans because of some tavern girl? He didn't like it. He watched her making rounds, flirting with some of the men, accepting coin here and there. She didn't _look_ dangerous. But why did she want to go North? Why now, when everyone was fleeing it?

He got up from the table, feeling more tipsy than he wanted to, and walked across the room to where Kyra was refilling her pitcher. She turned around and almost ran into him.

"Well hey there handsome," she said. "Couldn't wait for another drink?"

"Why do you want to go North?" he said, staring directly at her. She shrank. He was beginning to understand that his gaze was intimidating.

Her face instantly dropped its jovial demeanor. "My brothers. They were little, see, not even five, so we left them with my old aunt in my mum's town before our last trip… the trip when…" she looked down, and Gendry could see a tear in her eye. "I made it away, but only me. I'm the only one they have left, you see. I have to get there." She looked up at him, brown eyes brimming. Gendry immediately felt his heart soften.

"Why us?" he said. "As soon as we're clear of King's Landing, what's to stop us from raping you, robbing you and leaving you for dead."

She smiled. "Working in a tavern you learn pretty quick what sort of men there are. Those first two - your friend with the red hair and the one with the yellow cloak, they're your average sort - they might keep me as long as I was useful but they'd leave me as soon as I wasn't. I plan to be useful, so that's not a problem. But when I saw you and your golden-haired friend there, I knew I'd be safe." Her expression became a mischievous grin. "Besides, it's not every man who can resist the advances of a loose woman," she said, nudging his leg.

Gendry couldn't help but smile. "Come to our table in an half an hour," he said. "I'll think about it." She nodded pertly and he watched her swaying frame walk across the room. She reminded him of Arya, he thought; talkative, tomboyish, occasionally crude, but loyal to a fault. She would fit in well with Lem and Anguy. And they would need help.

* * *

 ****NOTES**

The Lem Anguy bromance is fun to write. Hopefully now the last chapter makes a little more sense. Also if there are any weird references to a character I haven't introduced it's probably Kyra, I couldn't decide on her name for a while. Who is Arya now?

 **Also I threw in the Dancing Dove for any Tamora fans out there :)**


	5. 5 Demon Queen

**5\. Demon Queen**

* * *

The pack was restless. They'd been in the southron lands too long, lands that were full of prey, but crowded. The woods had a sweet, pungent smell, and the air was thick and sluggish. They longed for the sharp scent of pine needles, and cool winds of the north. It wasn't natural, for wolves, to stay this far south.

Their leader knew the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the streams, the rivers, the forests, the roads, the towns. She had wandered this country, from the swamps in the north to the city on the sea whose stench stretched for miles, for five years. At first she was alone, but gradually, they found her. First the loners, wolves whose packs had died out or males who had lost the fight for alpha and were forced to leave the pack. Then a smaller packs had come and asked to join her, mainly females and pups who needed protection. Then larger packs, drawn by the rumors of the wolf who stood as high as a man. Her pack was now one hundred strong, an army, almost, that moved from hill to valley, from river to plain like locusts, emptying the woods of game and taking what livestock the soldiers had left behind.

Demon wolf, the humans called her. They locked their doors and shutters and night, and kept long sticks with sharp ends by the doors, beside the bed. When they heard they howling in distance they carried their lambs inside to sleep with their children. Only then did the children understand that this was not just another story told to frighten them.

Among her pack she was a queen, the greatest they had known. She had killed a bear alone, they said, and devoured its carcass in two days. She was raised in the great northern forests, they whispered, beyond the swamps, and her kin came from a land of always winter. And she had lived among humans. She knew how long to stay, how many lambs to take, before the villagers would come looking for them with flying sticks and pointed metal and fire. She knew that humans often left food unattended, and taught the wolves to wait until the shepard had fallen asleep before taking an ewe. She kept her pack safe, and well fed. As their numbers grew they grew bolder, sleeping closer to towns, attacking larger animals. Two weeks ago they had killed a horse, and the man that was riding it.

But their Queen had a master. A girl. Her master had raised her, fed her, trained her, loved her, and then one day had made her leave. The wolf had been confused and angry for many moons. She was little more than a pup then, and had lived for most of her life in a castle. She tried to find her way back but she couldn't; she had lost her master's scent and suddenly was alone, away from her master and her sister and her brothers and the humans that had given her food and water and brushed her coat. She had been hungry. She had killed a deer. She learned to hunt and to find water and dry places to sleep at night. Her pack found her. She almost forgot her master.

Then, several years later, something changed. First it was a sense of being watched, but not from the outside, like a predator might watch her (although she had never encountered a predator before) but from the inside. The feeling came again, usually at night, usually in the heat of the chase. It grew stronger. It made the hair on the wolf's back stand up, but she wasn't afraid of it. Then one night she saw her master, sleeping in a dark room. Her master woke up and said her name.

The next night, her master came to her again. She sat up in bed and spoke and water ran from her eyes. Nymeria understood that her master was sorry for sending her away. Over the next several moons her master visited her many times. She showed Nymeria a house made of stone, white on the outside and dark on the outside, with a pool of water in the center. She showed her a city that was full of many small rivers, and that smelled like the city to the south but not as bad. She her a wooden house that was surrounded on all sides by water as far as she could see. Nymeria in turn showed her master her pack, and the woods and the streams that were her home. She showed her her favorite hunting trails and places to sleep at night, and where the deer went to breed. She showed her the villages, and the men with sticks that marched on the road in twos and threes and tens. Then one day the master showed the wolf the tall red mountain that Nymeria recognized; the city in the south. The wolf understood that her master had come home.

Nymeria had led her pack south towards the city by the sea to meet her master. She waited. A moon ago, her master had called her, and the wolf had gone to meet the girl in a wood less than half a day's ride from the city. The girl had cried and wrapped her hands in the wolf's fur, and the wolf had wagged her tail. She didn't remember the last time she had wagged her tail. They found that when they were touching they could communicate very clearly, much clearer than the wolf remembered when they were children. And her master was glad.

* * *

**NOTES

Another short one. I'm following a pretty strict off on chapter schedule, and I didn't want to break it. Plus some details on Arya's particular warging connect that will be useful later, although the rules bend.


	6. 6 Gendry

**6\. Gendry**

* * *

"Damn wolves give me the creeps," said Lem. They had just set out on their fourth day from King's Landing. The serving wench had proved to be a good rider, even if her horse, a mare bought at the early market the morning after their night in the tavern, was a little slow. They were making good time.

"This is the third night they've been with us," said Edric. "Think this is the same pack that used to be in the Riverlands? You know, with the Demon Wolf?"

"I've heard she has red eyes, claws of steel and a coat of Ice," said Anguy dramatically. "And that she eats only the flesh of newborn babes and drinks only the blood of virgins," he said, winking at Kyra, who looked unimpressed.

Gendry was in the rear, which he liked, because it gave him time to think, and let him grimace as much as he wanted too without drawing the notice of the others. He wasn't used to riding and frequently wished that they were still walking, as they had with the children. Kyra confused him. He'd gone to bed in their cheap rooms at the Dancing Dove thinking he'd made a mistake to let her join them, but when she'd arrived at the appointed meeting spot the next morning, new horse in hand and wearing comfortable looking riding breeches, he hadn't the heart to tell her she wasn't coming. That she immediately began to get on with Anguy and Lem like they were oldest of friends — a companionship that included ganging up on Edric — didn't exactly lighten his mood either. He spent most of the first few day in a sulk.

For the first section of their journey they had stuck to the Kingsroad, which was about as safe as any other path in the Crownlands, but as dusk neared Kyra would lead them off the road and into the woods, often on paths so faint that Gendry thought they were more likely to have been made by animals than by traders, to a convenient clearing a comfortable distance from the road. Most nights they lit a fire - a risk, but in places to well concealed, not a large one, and when they began to hear the wolves, a necessary one.

He had been surprised when, on the first night. she'd laid her bedroll beside his. He knew what she wanted and had turned his back. After a night of the cold shoulder, he'd expected her to move and take up with a warmer prospect - any of the other men, in fact, would have invited her in - but instead she returned the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that. She slept restlessly, although he never her her call out. Sometimes her rustling woke him up and he watched her. She looked much smaller in her sleep, and younger. On the first night of the wolves, he had woken before dawn to find her bedroll empty and he had suddenly been filled with panic - where had she gone, on a night like this? He was about to wake the others to look for her when she slipped quietly out of the woods and padded towards her bedding. He'd chastised her angrily in a whisper and she had stared back and him sullenly, and said she had just gone to make water.

Gendry's thoughts were interrupted by Kyra herself, who had dropped back to ride beside him.

"So serious!" she jibed. "If you stay like that all the way to Winterfell we'll all die of boredom before we get there."

"I think I'll die of something else first," he said, grimacing as his horse stepped in a ditch.

"Aye, the fourth day's always the worst. But I feel worse for your poor horse, having to carry you."

After a beat, Gendry said, "I hear bad things about the North."

"Oh, terrible things." Gendry thought she was making another quip, but when he looked at her he saw her brow was furrowed wit concern. "They say that the wildings raiding the wall had destroyed half of the northern villages, and the Bolton's taxes and Stannis's army have destroyed the other half. They say that winter is coming but the grain barns are only half full. They say that Ramsey Bolton forced Arya Stark to marry him and sobs every nig—"

"That's not true!" Gendry cut in hotly.

"No?" Kyra said, raising her eyebrows.

"No, it was some other girl, not Arya, some girl they said was Arya so that Ramsey could marry her." He was surprised the the vehemence of his statement.

"You sound like you knew her. How do you know to which Lord or she is or is not married?"

Gendry was angry with himself. They had heard at Cider Hall that the Bolton bastard had married "Arya Stark" but Brienne had told them it was a like; that Jamie Lannister had told her the girl was a fake, some northern whelp his father was using to gain control of the North. She'd seen her. Besides, Arya would never marry a man like that. She'd kill him first. But he was in no mood to disclose either his relationship with Brienne or his relationship with Arya to Kyra, who already knew more than she should. Gendry had realized that there was no way to hide Oathbreaker from her without letting the weapon rust in its scabbard, and the girl had naturally been curious about so fine a sword. Gendry had told her a version of the truth; that he was a knight, and that the sword had been a gift from another knight whose life he had saved. He didn't mention that it was made of Valyarian steel, and if she recognized the Lannister symbols on the hilt she didn't say anything.

"Because she's dead," he said shortly, and spurred his horse toward the front.

Gendry was on edge for the rest of the ride. He didn't know why talking to Kyra upset him so much. She was a shameless flirt, sure, but then so was Jeyne when she wasn't exhausted or hungry, and in fact so were most of the women he had met with the Brotherhood. He supposed you had to be a certain kind of woman to tolerate the Lem and Anguy. Perhaps she unnerved him because she was seemed so unerringly competent, at riding, at jibing, at finding campsites and making and breaking camp. She carried knives in her boots. It might be the way she moved, he thought. Her lithe body had a sort of savage, unconscious grace, like a cat.

That night he sparred with Edric, and exhausted the younger knight long before Gendry himself was satisfied. He tried to coax Lem into a duel unsuccessfully - perhaps too aggressively - and spent the rest of his evening furiously completing the exercises Brienne had taught him, while Kyra watched silently from across the fire.

The next day Lem pulled up beside him.

"Well you're in a foul mood, milord."

"Don't call me milord," Gendry snapped. He knew he was overreacting. But the last thing he wanted was Kyra finding out about his heritage, although he wasn't sure if he was more afraid of her telling someone or afraid of her teasing.

"Aye, aye, yer in pain, I see. Now what I wonder is if it's your arse or your heartstrings. She's a fine woman, you know, and none of us would think the worse of you if you gave her some room." Gendry opened his mouth to retort, but Lem had already pulled away.

That afternoon they reached Widewater and decided to stop for the day; the horses needed rest. Not for the first time, Gendry wished they were still on the road with Yoren, before the fight, before Harrenhal, before the Brotherhood and the twins. Things were simpler then. It had taken them almost two weeks to reach this spot on the road with Yoren, Gendry recalled. Most of the boys hadn't been much more than children then, and with the wagons the caravan to Castle Black had moved almost as slow as the orphans from the Inn at the Crossroads. The sparkling lake had been beautiful then, and was still beautiful now, but different. It was colder. Most of the leaves had changed colors or fallen, giving the lake a kind of chilly solemnity as he watched the light fade from the shore.

He heard a faint humming further along the shore and moved toward it, pushing some winter ferns out of the way.

"And how she smiled and how she laughed,

The maiden of the tree

She spun away and said to him,

'No featherbed for me'"

Kyra was crouching in a small sheltered glade, washing her hair in the chilly water. She still wore her breeches, but her shirt, just washed, was hanging on a nearby bush. Gendry flushed immediately, but couldn't look away. Her back was thin but strong; Gendry could see the outlines of her shoulder muscles, flexing slightly as she wrung her hair. Her small, white breasts were illuminated by the yellow-orange light reflecting off the lake and Gendry could see her dark pink nipples standing out against the cold. A rivulet of water ran over her collarbone and flowed around her left breast. He knew she had heard him coming, but she continued to gaze out a the lake, her face concealed by her hair.

"You can look," she said without turning. "I don't mind."

Gendry turned and walked quickly back towards camp.

* * *

That night it was Gendry who couldn't sleep. Kyra was eveywhere, sitting on Lem's lap, bouncing skillfully on her old mare, standing by the lake, inviting him to touch, to taste. He saw her in the tavern, but her face was not her face, but Arya's, and her gown had acorns on it, her small white breasts peeking out from lace trim, a rivulet of tears running from her cheek to her chest. He must have finally drifted off, because he awoke to find Kyra's bedroll empty again.

The clearing was eerily illuminated by the moon, and he could hear wolves howling in the the distance. Anguy, Edric, and Lem were all fast asleep, and Lem was snoring. Gendry got up and moved through a clump of trees and into a smaller clearing, just in time to see Kyra emerge from the trees beyond. He felt his blood rise and strode toward her, meaning to chastise her even more strongly then before, but before he reached her he caught her expression in the moonlight; it was loneliness.

Before making a conscious decision he reached her and crushed his lips to hers, gripping her hips with his large blacksmith's hands and pulling her towards him. It was not a gentle kiss, and he expected her to jerk away, but instead she brought her hands up and wound them painful into his hair, pulling him even closer, and arched her small body against his.

Gendry had been with women before, of course; with Jeyne, who would come to him at the Inn for comfort, and who he never had the heart to refuse; with a couple of the women at the Peach, who had taken him to their bed even though he couldn't pay, and even with one of the sisters, who, Gendry had learned, had been sent to the motherhome after bearing a child out of wedlock. He liked women, but had no desire to conceive a bastard, and nothing had ever felt like this.

Kyra broke their kiss and ducked her head to bite his neck, her hands skimming down his chest, dropping to his waistline, where she began to untuck his shirt. When Gendry pushed her off balance with the force of his next kiss, she dug her hands into the top of his breeches to stay upright. Gendry untied her cloak, dropping it onto the moss behind her and wrapping his other hand around her jawline as he did so, making her cry out. Then like an animal he tore off her wool shirt, exposing her breasts in the moonlight.

He grabbed her small, tight ass with one and and put the other in her hair to lay her on the cloak, not gently. She moaned and arched her back when Gendry bit her right nipple, circling the left with the index finger of one hand, and then bit his shoulder, hard. Gendry could feel his arousal pushing against her thigh, and she ground her hips to shift him towards her center, making him even harder. When Gendry moved his tongue to her other breast, she resumed her work at his waistline, deftly untying the laces of his breeches and tracing her hands along the hard lines of muscle at his hips.

She smelled like the forest, Gendry thought. Nice, like pine needles and wet leaves. And something else, something feral, but exciting. Her smell reminded him of something, of someone, but he couldn't remember what.

Kyra slid his breeches over his hips, letting his arousal spring free, and quickly began to work on her own, wriggling completely out of her breeches and smallclothes while Gendry was still trying to kick off his boots. While he was off balance trying to kick off his pants and appreciate her entirely bare body at the same time, she surprised him by swing a leg around his hips and flipping them around, so that he lay on the cloak and she was straddling him, her hair fallen loose from its tie falling over her shoulders and pooling around her aroused breasts. Gendry thought he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

She was trembling. The cold, Gendry thought, and he reached up to pull her down for a kiss. Her heart was hammering, and his too. His shirt was still on, he thought, what a nuisance, and he started to sit up to take it off, but Kyra pushed him down and took him in her hand. He put his hands on her thighs and she raised and then lowered herself onto his arousal, the sensation of her wet heat making him see black for a second. She was very tight. He felt resistance and he worried for a moment that he was too big for her, but then she pushed herself down with determination and he felt something break.

He sat up quickly, one hand propping him up against the cloak. Her eyes were tightly shut and from her face he could tell she was in some pain.

"You're a virgin," he said in disbelief.

While he said this she adjusted her hips, making Gendry spasm slightly, and he saw her face relax. Her eyes flew open suddenly and she looked straight into his blue ones.

"Not anymore I'm not, stupid," she said.

Gendry felt ears grow hot. They were still joined at the hips and when she started to lift herself to get off of him he clamped his hands on her thighs. He was going mad from the lack of movement and had half a mind to flip her over and fuck her senseless, virgin or no. Another part of him wanted to run, and to forget that this, forget that she had ever happened. He'd never been with a virgin before, and if he had had his choice he never would have either. It was a completely different thing.

"Let me go, Gendry," she said, squirming and flushing herself as she realized exactly how intimate their position was.

He was having more and more trouble not moving and he let go to her, his dick crying out for the lack of friction, his brain ashamed to notice that there were red marks on her hips would be blue before tomorrow. She dismounted and quickly pulled on her shirt, grabbing her breeches and tugging at her cloak that Gendry was still sitting on. "Wait," he said, and grabbed her arm. She yanked it away but he was much stronger than she, and after a few seconds of violent struggle she was sitting on the cloak, her legs pinned between his own and her wrists trapped by one of his hands. She looked furious.

"I said _let me go,"_ she hissed.

"I don't understand," he said. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you seduce me? You hardly even know me!"

She looked away and Gendry forced her chin towards him. She blanched under his gaze and jerked desperately against his hold, not helping Gendry's stubborn hard-on.

"Because I wanted you!" she growled. "I wanted it to be you." And then so quietly that he wasn't sure he heard right, "I feel safe with you."

And then suddenly instead of jerking away she leaned forward and kissed him, a sort of hopeless kiss that made Gendry melt and ignite at the same time. When then broke Gendry had a stupid grin on his face and Kyra looked a little shocked.

Gendry let go of her wrists and her legs and and put his hand in her hair. "That wasn't really it, you know," he said. "Here, let me show you."

* * *

**NOTE

Skipping to sexy times! Hopefully you all have figured out who Arya is.

I woulda liked to put in more build up, but I'm not here to write a novel, and this is not the main point of this fanfic. Not typical Gendrya sexytimes either because Gendry doesn't know. She's not his true love yet.

Also, for those of you worried about ages, think whatever you want, I worried about it for a while too but then again I think it's just better if we imagine all of GRMM's characters to be about 5 years older.


	7. 7 Ugly Girl

**7\. Ugly Girl**

* * *

The wolf wanted to to know why she didn't just take the metal sticks and leave. Then she could be with the pack all of the time.

"Well, for one, I eat people food, silly," said the girl, scratching the wolf behind the ears as they walked through the woods. It was late in the afternoon. The girl had to reach up to do so. Shoulder to shoulder, girl and wolf were about the same height; ears included, the wolf was clearly taller. "And you know the pack wouldn't like it if I lit a fire every night so I could cook their kill. Wolves don't like fire."

 _I like fire,_ the wolf thought.

"Well you're different. And you do not. You always left the room when Septa Morgane came to light one."

 _I don't like smoke._

"Hmph."

The wolf thought that the girl didn't want to leave because of the tall man, her mate. The girl blushed, and the wolf was confused again. She didn't understand why humans blushed; it made them smell like food, and that was dangerous.

"He's not my mate. I mean, humans don't mate the way wolves do, like for always."

The wolf thought she understood. She wanted a mate, but all of the male wolves around her were small and thin. She had met no other wolves like her, and that made her sad. Every time she was in heat, one or two of the males would come slinking towards her, but so far she had always growled until they went away. She didn't want weaklings for pups. But if there were nothing better, she had thought about letting one of the small wolves satisfy her while she was in heat. But the girl's mate was big and strong, bigger and stronger than almost any man she had seen. And she liked his smell. He was a good mate, she thought.

The girl blushed again, although she tried to pretend she hadn't. "It's not like that. He's hasn't even seen my face."

 _So what?_ thought the wolf. _You still smell the same._ Her master seemed to attach great importance to faces, but they didn't make much difference to wolves. There were big humans and small humans and stinky humans and nice-smelling humans. For the most part their faces all looked the same, although she could tell the one the girl was wearing today was different because it had scars the wolf didn't remember.

"And besides," the girl continued. "The swords will get to Winterfell just as fast if I stay with the humans as if I ride with the pack."

The wolf decided it wasn't worth arguing any more. She didn't really care about the metal sticks herself, of course. But she knew that the Kindly Man had told the girl to get them. The girl had told the wolf about the Kindly Man and the strange house across the sea that was dark and damp like a cave but with a strange, acrid smell, and the docks that reeked of brine and fish and rotting clams. The wolf had seen these places through her eyes, and smelled through her nose. And the wolf was afraid of the Kindly Man, because the Kindly Man smelled like death.

They were close to the village now and the girl told the wolf to leave, although the wolf to leave, although the wolf wanted to stay.

"You'll just get in the way," she whispered when they were within sight of a cottage. "Besides, I don't want anyone to see you."

When the wolf had gone, the ugly little girl crept up a small hill near edge of the woods and lay in the tall grass for sometime, watching the village. It was near dusk, and the farmers were coming back from their fields, still bringing in the last of the meager late harvest that the girl knew they had planted in desperation, after most of their crops had been burned or stolen by the soldiers. She saw them stop at a large cottage in the center of town and deposit a third of their haul in it's shed. At the doorway of the cottage stood a fat man, around middle age, leaning on a club like stick.

Was the wolf right? she thought. Her brow furrowed. The tall man _was_ strong, but she didn't need a pack, not anymore. She was no one, and no one always worked best alone. Besides, if the tall man knew what she really was, he would hate her, just as much as she hated the names on her list. She never thought about why she hated them, anymore. Her hate was cold, The Kindly Man said. No longer dangerous. He had given her permission to kill them, these men whose deaths she had prayed for every day while she served at the House of White and Black, and another task, for the God. She had boarded a ship going west.

No, she wasn't staying because of the tall man. He was warm to sleep with at night, even if it did make it a little more difficult to see the wolf. Thankfully the man slept like a rock. She liked being Kyra; she liked to think that if Kyra had been alive, they would have been friends. And she liked the sex. The Stranger had no rules about sex. But if he slowed her down, or threatened her mission, she would leave.

* * *

She waited until the sun had set and the light was beginning to fade before descending to the village, taking the long way around to avoid being seen and emerging as close as possible to the fat man's door. She was wearing a dress that looked a size to big for her, and hung ungracefully off one shoulder. She arranged her expression and then timidly knocked.

After peering through the window to make sure there was no threat, the fat man opened the door, looking disdainfully down at the girl. "What do you want?" he barked. "Who are you"

"Please sir…" the girl began. Gods, she was ugly, thought the fat man. Several scars twisted across her face, and it looked like both her nose had been broken several times. One of her eyes was drooping thanks to a what looked a broken cheekbone. "Please sir, my family… the soldiers, they came and the took…" The fat man made to close the door on her, but she stuck her arm in and the fat man noticed her white shoulder.

"Please sir, I'll do anything…"

Anything, thought the fat man. His dick gave a little twitch. Truth be told, he was too cheap to pay for whores, and he had gotten too old and fat to catch the village girls when the ran from him. He'd had a wife, once, but he'd beat her until she looked not unlike this girl and then she'd run off, good riddance. Bitch ate too much. This girl looked like she'd take a fucking or two, and a beating while he was at it, without much trouble. Not like he had to keep her.

He opened the door. "Please sir," she said, "I know you are wealthy man. Just a copper or two for my family, and I'll make you feel alright.. I'll do whatever you—"

He hit her with the back of his hand, hard, opening up a shallow scratch on her cheek. "Work first, then we'll see if you get paid, girl," he said. Leering. he untied his breeches and let them drop, and then grabbed the girl by the hair, forced her to her knees as he sat down in his favorite chair. The girl whimpered and opened her mouth. Good, the man thought. She's been trained.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. He was in this position when the girl slit his throat, using the knife hidden in her boot. His eyes went wide with shock, and he let out one last gurgling scream as the girl cut off his member and dropped it in his open, blood filled mouth.

The girl stood up and calmly wiped off the single drop of blood that had fallen on her boot and spit on the fat man's face. Then, carefully avoiding the mess, she took the purse the man was wearing, grabbed several more from underneath the loose floorboard in the corner that she had seen the fat man's eyes flicker to when she mentioned his wealth, and climbed out the back window into the woods.

* * *

The wolf was waiting for her. _You smell terrible,_ she said.

"Oh, I do?" said the girl, mock sniffing at her armpits. "I guess I'll just have to smell like you, then!" She said, and jumped on the wolf, who rolled her on the ground and then began to lick her all over.

"Nymeria stop it, stopp itt!" The girl giggled. "That tickles!"

 _Your face tastes like blood,_ thought Nymeria, panting, as the girl stood up.

"Oh right, I need to fix that" said the girl. She looked down for a second and when she came up she wore a different face. The wolf wagged her tail.

* * *

**NOTES

Ugly girl gets to be a casual badass! Plus wolf convos are very fun. A glimpse of the girl she used to be, although now she is a woman and knows how to use it.


	8. 8 Gendry

**8\. Gendry**

* * *

They had left the Kingsroad nearly two weeks ago, and were taking back roads, sometimes little more than paths, through the Riverlands. Anguy and Lem determined the route for the most part, drawing on their many years wandering this country with the Brotherhood, but occasionally Kyra would suggest an alternative, usually even smaller path, to cut around a town, or to avoid a popular river crossing. The trees were mainly bare now, so thankfully there was little underbrush to cut through; far worse was the mud, that stopped the horses and sometimes meant laborious, difficult detours over rocky, wild ground.

Every night they shared a bedroll. She would slip in beside him and press her back against his chest, tucking her head into the hollow between his collarbone and chin, her hair tickling his beard. He would wrap an arm around her, his big forearm easily spanning the distance between her navel and her shoulder, and listen to her heartbeat. She was so small. It never took him long to fall asleep.

She didn't seem so small during the day, when she made lewd jokes and argued with Lem over the best way to go, lazing in her saddle like she was born in it. She didn't seem so small when they were making love, encounters that were as a rule brief and frenzied, in a clearing on a bed of leaves, by a stream, against a tree. Encounters that left both of them marked. Gendry flushed when one of the men noticed a bruise on his neck, or the scratches on his back when he changed his shirt. He was glad they couldn't see the marks his fingers left on her thighs, or the faint bite marks on her breast. He told himself, every time, that next time he would be gentle, but then she would bite him, or grab his hair, or insult him. She somehow always knew how to make him angry, and she used it to get what she wanted.

He caught her once, at night, when it was just beginning to get light. He woke to find her still asleep but squirming against him. She was cold. The blanket had slipped, exposing her shoulder to the night. He pulled her close and wrapped the blanket around both of them, and waited until her breathing became even, her chest gently rising and falling. Then he slipped a hand past her shirt, under her breeches and her smallclothes, to find the little nub in the soft hair that grew there. He started to make little circles with thumb, watching her eyelids flutter and her lips part slightly. When he slid his index finger inside her eyes flickered open, and he put a finger of his free hand on her lips. Lem was still snoring a few feet away.

She tried to bite his finger but he took it away and stoked her cheekbone and accelerated the circling of his thumb. She arched her back and rolled her eyes upward, her breast pushing into his chest. He could feel her starting to come apart. His arousal pulsed against her thigh. When she opened her mouth to moan he leaned down and kissed her, gently. He pulled her smallclothes off her hips and slipped inside her, and followed her in a few swift strokes.

He kissed her again when it was over and when he pulled away her expression was dreamy, her mouth soft and her hair spilled around her head. She looked at him with a half smile for a second before seeming to realize that she had been taken advantage of. Her expression turned angry and she shoved him away and pulled on her breeches before rolling out of bed.

He'd smiled all morning.

Twice, after they'd stopped in the evening, she had told them that nearby was a hiding-place that her family had used to store coin and other essentials, to restock if they were robbed mid-journey. She walked into the woods by herself and would be gone for several hours, returning the first time with a purse of silver and a sturdy dagger, and the second time with two small purses of gold. They'd used the money to buy provisions — which cost four times what they had three years previously — and to coax a farmer into trading saddles with Anguy, whose seat had split a week out from King's Landing. Edric had promised to repay her from the vaults of Starfall as soon as was convenient.

She still unnerved him. She never seemed to get upset about anything. He knew she was tired; they all were. But she never complained, about the lack of food, about the cold, about the mud that seemed to be everywhere on everyone and everything. She told marvelous stories about her childhood traveling up up and down trading furs, and her family, but she never seemed to miss them; at least, Gendry thought, not really. He liked her best when in the early morning, when she was still cranky from sleep, or when they were making love. She seemed more herself then, although Gendry couldn't have said exactly why. At night he sometimes caught her watching him practice with Oathbreaker with a kind of hunger, a longing that didn't seem to fit with the rest of his personality.

She had with her a long, lumpy sack that during the day she kept rolled in her bedroll, latched to the back of her saddle. One morning Gendry picked it up to hand it to her, and found it to be surprisingly heavy. She snatched it from him quickly and rolled it in her blankets. When he asked her what it was she had leaned in conspiratorially and told him that it was silver, candlesticks and spoons and a few dishes, that she'd stolen from a lord's house sometime after her family was killed.

"Promise you won't tell the others," she'd said, looking afraid. Odd, Gendry thought. He'd never seen her afraid of anything else.

They went out of their way to visit the Inn and they found it abandoned, doors hanging from hinges and windows smashed. Gendry dug up a bottle of spirit that he'd buried behind the forge and they all got roaringly drunk, and told stories about Tom Sevenstrings and the whores at the Peach.

"What was it like, with Lady Catelyn," whispered Kyra that night, in one of the big creaking beds on the second floor. "Did she let you go to the Peach?" All four of them had spent hours regaling her with tales of the Brotherhood, of fights and hideaways and close escapes and Lord Beric's talent for coming back from the dead. She'd told them that she had heard rumors of the Lady in King's Landing, although she said that most people there didn't believe it, and thought it was a tale made up by locals to scare the Freys.

Gendry paused and stared in to the darkness, trying to find the words to explain. "She didn't—care really," he said. "She didn't care about anything except killing Freys. If we were not there when she wanted us, or if we failed to do what she asked, she would get terribly angry, but where we were in between, she didn't care. So yes, we went to the Peach. Or they did. Mainly I stayed at the Inn."

"Was she really grey, like they said she was? Her skin all leathery?"

Gendry nodded. "She had to hold her hand over her mouth so she could speak. It was still kind of a croak." He smiled suddenly. "It would have been funny really if she hadn't been so terrifying."

"Sansa is alive though," she said, like a fact. "Why didn't she look for Sansa?"

"I don't know, Kyra. I don't know."

* * *

Almost three weeks after leaving King's Landing, the land around them began to turn into swamp. Gendry's horse got stuck and they had to spend an hour pulling the animal out, and later that same day Anguy sprained his wrist when his horse stepped in a sinkhole and panicked, throwing him off onto a rock. Kyra wrapped his arm and then announced that there was only one way through the swamps, and that that was the Kingsroad, and the causeway.

They were apprehensive, but given the thickening mud, they knew they had no choice. The farmer they had traded saddles with had told them that the battle between Stannis and the Boltons had finally come to a head, and that Stannis had lost, partly because of the desertion of a significant portion of his troops, who had fled the frozen, famished camp before the snows broke for long enough to let Stannis set the siege. Roose Bolton was dead, and his bastard son ruled alone at Winterfell. The way south was littered with groups of armed, hungry men.

"I'll take on a Stannis man over a Sparrow any day," Anguy had proclaimed. "At least they won't try to make you repent before they kill you."

They decided that it would be safest to cross at night, when running into any deserters seemed most unlikely. They slept for a few fitful hours until Kyra woke them a little before midnight. They saddled the horses and set out from their cramped and boggy campsite near the road.

The causeway was in bad disrepair. Most of it was littered with holes, and in between the holes were icy patches; they dismounted and led their horses around them as best they could. Anguy's especially was skittish. About a third of the way across, a wide section of the road had sunk into the swamp, and they had to urge their animals across, all of them sinking about waist deep into the briney muck. They had only gotten about halfway when the sun began to rise.

To the east the land was flat until the ocean, a muddy, rocky, brackish plain where only a few determined plants grew. The first light lit up the rim of the world for miles in either direction, casting an eerie pale light over the shore, and glinting off the chunks of ice that had formed on the shore. Gradually the light grew and turned from pale to pink to a violent red, shooting tendrils up into the sky over their heads. Ahead of them they could see the three broken towers of Moat Caitlin, underneath a host of stars burning in a red and magenta sky.

Kyra looked behind them, one, twice, then three times. Gendry followed her gaze. To the south the sunrise was streaked with orange at the horizon, and Gendry thought he could see an animal in the distance, silhouetted against the blaze. A fox, he thought.

The sun was had risen into low clouds by the time they made it to Moat Caitlin, transforming the dramatic landscape into a monochromatic wasteland. The castle ahead sunk into the grey mists, seeming to become less, not more solid as they drew nearer. They saw no signs of life on the ramparts, although Gendry doubted that the castle was deserted. Moat Caitlin was not quite as unavoidable as the Twins, however; there was a solid rim between the walls and the swamp on the western side of the castle that was just wide enough for one, or possibly two horses to pass. The fog at the base was thick enough that Gendry hoped anyone looking casually from the edge of the castle would miss them. A decent archer who was paying attention, however, could pick them off in a hurry. Maybe Moat Caitlin was abandoned.

They made it around the walls unharmed. There was only a short bridge separating Moat Caitlin from a wall of trees: the North. Mounting the bridge from the rim they had been walking on required a short climb, and Anguy's horse refused to cooperate. Gendry could feel sweat rolling down his shirt. They pushed and pulled, shouting angry whispers at the animal and at each other. When the horse reared its head to bray, Gendry clapped its mouth together and yanked it up by the head; finally it followed. They started on the bridge and Gendry started to believe they had made it when six men stepped out from the forrest in front of them, blocking their path. Behind, he heard the sickening crunch of metal as the rusty gate creaked upward, and another ten stepped out of the gateway. They were dressed in a motley of furs, leather jerkins, and helmets; most had wrapped their hands in bits of cloth and a few had similarly bundled their feet. More than half of them held short infantry swords; the rest held spears, and one, a battle axe. No arrows, Gendry thought.

One of the men, who missing his right ear and had a grizzly, not-quite-healed scar along his jawline on the same side, stepped forward. "Now then," he said, "I don' see no need for fightin' on this fine morn. We'll just be needin' yer weapons, and yer horses. Any vitriments you got, we'd be much obliged. And yer boots, o' course." He smiled, and Gendry could see that was missing most of his teeth. No boots and no food in this country was as good as a death sentence. The man squinted at Kyra, seeming to notice her for her for the first time. "Is that a lassie? Oh, we'll be needing her too."

Two things happened at once. Lem swung up into his saddle and dug his heels into the horse's sides, drawing his sword as he went, and the man with the missing ear crumpled to the ground, a dagger sunk into his chest just below his collarbone. Edric grabbed his horse, who had started slightly and mounted to follow Lem. Gendry saw Kyra run towards the gate and slide nearly under the feet of the closet man, leaving a knife in his groin and causing him to double over, a river of blood spouting from his breeches. A second man from behind them charged Gendry and he cut him down with the sword that he didn't remember drawing. Anguy was trying to draw his bow with his broken wrist; Gendry shoved him before pivoting to block the sword of a third man, and he toppled off the bridge into the swampy moat.

Kyra had taken a dead man's sword and was using it to fight three attackers; she held the blade expertly but Gendry could see that it was too heavy for her. The remaining five closed on Gendry. He was furious. The mists around him seemed to grow thicker and all he could see were the men in front of him, the men that were blocking his way to Kyra. He slashed and thrust, his muscles remembering the exercises and the sparring, but this was something else entirely. Oathbreaker made contact—an arm, he thought—and he heard a man scream as he thrust the blade into another's stomach. The Valerian steel sliced neatly though the leather jerkin.

Gendry felt a sharp pain in his leg and he heard a thud and a cry from the other side of the bridge. Kyra's sword was spouting from a man's shoulder and she and was on the ground, rolling away from blade. Gendry swung Oathbreaker above his head and brought it down on the man whose spear had cut his leg. There was a crunch of metal on metal, and the blade cut through helmet and bone as one.

He looked up, and the man on top of Kyra was gone. In his place was the largest wolf Gendry had ever seen, with something that looked like a leg in his mouth. Of the three men left standing near Gendry—one clutching an arm that looked only partially attached— two ran. The third was slumped against the gate, his helmet askew, his eyes unfocused. Thrown by the wolf. Gendry charged.

The wolf sprung towards Gendry and Oathbreaker sliced its side before Gendry was thrown to the right by the force of the animal hitting his shoulder. Oathbreaker fell out of his hands and clattered on the stones in front of the gate. Gendry landed next to the body of the dead spearman; he grabbed the weapon, and got to his feet facing the beast. Incredibly, Kyra was, he saw, alive, and she was getting to her feet and saying something, he couldn't tell what. She was covered in blood. Gendry raised the spear but before he could throw the wolf was gone, running down the bridge and following the four remaining deserters, who were running as fast as they could towards the woods. The man whose arm Gendry had cut tripped, and the wolf ripped off his head in one clean motion before bounding out of sight.

To Gendry, it seemed that everything had at once become very quiet and very in focus. He could hear a the soft lap of the brackish, muddy water against the earthen bridge, and a sloshy, sucking sound that Anguy made as he moved toward the heap of men and horses at the far side of the bridge. He felt a breath of wind as Kyra ran lightly past him towards Anguy. Behind him were six bodies, their blood a sharp contrast against the dark grey of the castle stones. His thigh was bleeding freely from a long gash.

He heard a ripping sound; Kyra was kneeling, tearing someone's shirt. Gendry felt a lurch in his stomach and stumbled toward her. She was kneeling over Edric, who was lying on the ground in a pool of blood and groaning, one eye already swollen shut from a gash on his cheek. A jagged bit of wood was coming out of his shoulder, the end a spear whose point was buried in his shoulder.

He saw the edge of Lem's cloak a few feet away; he was trapped underneath his horse. Anguy, covered in muck from where he had fallen in the swamp, was trying to pull the wounded animal away and Gendry went to help, but Kyra cut him off. "Don't bother," she said. "He's dead."

Gendry touched Kyra's neck and his fingers came away bloody. "It's not mine," she said, pushing his hand away without looking at him. She grasped the splintered wood jutting from Edric's chest with both hands and pulled. Edric screamed.

* * *

Everyone was angry. After moving Edric off the bridge into a half-sheltered recess near the tree line. Gendry and Anguy had rolled the dead horse off of Lem and wrapped his crushed body in his dirty cloak and buried him in a shallow grave. Anguy said nothing the entire time and continued to refuse to speak to Gendry when they rejoined Kyra, who had built a fire and was boiling rags for bandages. She had put some moss on Edric's chest and he was breathing shallowly, dripping in and out of consciousness. When she saw the blood-soaked rag that Gendry has wrapped around his leg she made him sit and cut a wider hole in his breaches, cleaned the wound quickly with one of her still-hot rags, and tied another to tightly that Gendry yelped. She didn't apologize.

"Stay," she said harshly, as if talking to a dog.

At this Gendry felt his own anger well up uncontrollably. He understood Anguy. If they'd been in opposite places he'd be just as angry too. But they both knew that Anguy would have been dead before he could have landed a shot, and Anguy would come around eventually. But Kyra made him boil. Was she angry because he hadn't fought well enough? He'd killed three men trying to get to her. Not that she'd needed much help. Why didn't she tell him that she could fight like that? And the wolf. And Lem.

And so Gendry sulked on one side of the fire, leg propped on a rock, and Anguy sulked on the other, while Kyra washed the blood out of her hair with the leftover boiled swamp water, and then returned to the bridge to loot the pockets of the dead men, her expression never changing. Gendry's anger blended with fatigue as he watched her bend among the bodies.

When she was finished, she dropped two pair of boots, a large, bloody pair of breeches, three small purses and four short knives at Gendry's feet. The mist had thickened and the grey light had gotten a shade darker. Anguy had fallen asleep next to Edric, his back to Gendry. Kyra put her hand on Edric's forehead and then walked without hesitating towards the woods.

"Wheer'do you think you're goin'?" Gendry slurred, shaking off sleep and starting to get to his feet. Edric whimpered slightly and tugged at his bandage.

"Herbs," she said coldly without turning around.

Fuck her, Gendry thought, letting his body fall back to the ground. Fuck her, fuck my leg, fuck this. He was vaguely aware that he should stay awake, but the fatigue was too heavy, and he drifted off.

* * *

He dreamed about a man with a golden broach in the shape of a hand, and underneath another silver one, shaped like a wolf. When he'd tried to look at the man's face it had melted, and become another's, older, whiter, also with a golden broach; and then the face had melted again to become a face that he had tried to forget, a face that he had once saw wiped clean as easily as if real life had been a dream.

He woke with a start. Anguy was still asleep and Edric seemed to be also, his breathing more even, his hand on his chest. One of their four remaining horses was chewing on a boot Kyra had taken from a dead man. A soft snow had begun to fall from the grey sky, and the fire was slowly choking on the thick white flakes.

Still tied to the saddle of Ary's mare was her bedroll, the sack she kept concealed for most of the day just peaking out underneath. Gendry stood up, ignoring the pain in his leg, which was, thankfully, still stable, and unrolled the bedroll. He fumbled with the complicated knot at the top of the stack and then drew his knife and cut it, shaking out the contents; a large, lumpy mass wrapped in what looked like a dress; and several smaller bags, one the smelled vile; and two wads of human hair. Wigs, Gendry realized. Inside the dress were two blade. One was tiny; a child's sword, but made of hard, unrusted steel. The other was blood red with back streaks and a golden handle encrusted with jeweled lions; the twin of Gendry's own.

He hung the small sword in his belt besides Oathbreaker, and carried the red and black blade — the Widow's Wail, Brienne his said — naked in his hand. He moved quietly into the wood, his feet muffled by the snow. He didn't have to go far until he saw her. She was standing next to the wolf, her cloaked back to him, her face buried in the giant animal's grey fur.

"Arya."

Both the wolf and the girl's attention snapped to him. It was Kyra's face. Her look was angry and aggressive, but Gendry could see that there were tears on her cheeks. Her eyes dropped to the sword he held, her expression hard. The direwolf—Nymeria? he remembered—growled. Cautiously, Gendry lowered the sword. "Arya, why didn't you tell me—" he began.

Her expression softenened suddenly, and she ran toward him, and threw her arms around his neck. He heard her whisper "I'm sorry," before something collided with his skull and he dropped to the ground.

* * *

**NOTES

Action scenes! Surprisingly fun to write! Lots of blocking!


	9. 9 Death

**9\. Death**

* * *

They ran.

Wolf and girl, girl and wolf; girl on top of wolf, clutching the fur of its neck, knees wrapped around its ribs, cloak flying behind her, three blades tucked down her leather jerkin, two golden handles and one plain glinting in the snow my her shoulder.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The tears that she had barely choked back before, for Lem, for Edric, flowed freely now, and she wiped them on the wolf's fur before they could freeze on her cheeks. She hated herself for them. She hated herself for staying with them, for leading them across that damned causeway, when alone she could have easily snuck around, or tricked her way through, or traveled to the narrow sea to book a boat. She was stronger alone. She didn't need a pack.

She refused to think about the tall man.

The wolf offered nothing, sensing that her master wanted nothing from her but speed. The wolf felt the girl's pain, not only as a servant feels its masters but more deeply, physically, through the link they shared. But the wolf was also excited, by the run, and by the cold, and the scents that she remembered from when she was a pup—the North!

Gradually the girl's mind grew quiet and the wolf felt her fatigue drifting through its muscles, although the girl's grip on her fur never loosened. The wolf began to look for shelter, and found a shallow overhang by the bank of a frozen stream. The wolf lay down on the carpet of dry leaves and the the girl wrapped herself in her cloak and buried herself into the wolf's fur. Within a minute, she was asleep.

* * *

Five days later, an old woman passed through the gates of Winterfell. Since Stannis had fallen, they had raised the gates to the outer courtyard most days to let smallfolk in to trade. When the Starks had reigned at Winterfell, in times of peace, the gates had stood open every day from dawn until dusk, and the smallfolk had passed freely, hawking vegetables, cheese, and meat from their farms, fish from the streams, pelts from the forest, and homespun cloth and wooden vessels from their cottages. Now, the gates stood open for half an hour in the morning, and less than that at night; the faces of the smallfolk who waited for a chance inside the castle were pinched from hunger and cold, and they carried on their backs any movable possessions they could barter for food; gold teeth, family crests whose gildings had almost worn through, bowls, plate, the boots and shirts of sons who had died in the wars, even blankets and cloaks. They had learned long ago that the Bolton lord would offer no charity, and they thought it better to freeze than to starve.

The old woman carried with her a large bundle of pelts, scraped but not cured and stinking strongly enough for even the war-worn smallfolk to give her a wide berth. Deer, winter fox, rabbit, even the pelt of a moose. Valuable goods, in a winter that was harsher than anyone alive in the North could recall, that had already stretched on for the better part of a year and showed now signs of stopping. The guards that searched each entrant for weapons (and took a heavy tax for their burden) made her throw down two of the smaller pelts and move on, deciding that her threat was less than her smell. The farmwife behind her was not so lucky. The spilled her bundle of old clothes and dragged off the road. The smallfolk looked away, but they heard her scream.

In the courtyard several flayed corpses had been tacked to wood crosses and raised on stakes in the air. Raised highest was a frozen, deteriorated body wearing an iron crown. A ragged banner with a flaming heart was nailed to the wood behind him. Lower down to the right stood a fresher corprse, not yet black and brown from exposure to the elements. The man's half torn face did not look young, but his skinless frame was large; this was a powerful man in life.

"Milken, the smith," whispered an old man with a lumpy sack over his shoulder to his neighbor. "They found out that he'd been passing information to Stannis, before the battle."

A man walked onto the inner ramparts behind the flayed bodies. He wore a thin circlet on his black hair and a luxurious ermine cloak, and black leather gloves. His face was handsome, but twisted into a strange smile. The old man hurried toward the area where the castle steward was beginning to inspect wares, barking prices — a loaf of bread, three turnips, four potatoes — to an assistant. The lord on the ramparts moved on.

The old woman started up at the Smith for a long time. She didn't flinch, but then, none of the smallfolk did; flayed men were a common sight. She hoisted her bundle and trundled away. If anyone had been paying attention, they would have seen her slip into a side door, and disappear.

* * *

The guards at the front gate were the first to die. They died silently, in their seats. The first die had his throat cut from behind, and watched as a hooded black figure slit the throats of his two dozing companions in less than three seconds. The figure waited for the fourth, who had gone to relieve himself off the ramparts. He died with a dagger through his eye.

Seven guard towers were built into the walls of Winterfell, but only four were defended. One by one the men defending them died; a throat, an eye, thump on the head and then a stab in the back. Not one screamed.

Ten minutes later, there was a whoosh and a loud thud on the ramparts; in the morning they would the twisted body of a soldier at the bottom, a wad of cloth stuffed in his mouth, his eyes wide open in fear. The two men patrolling the ramparts rushed to the spot. One tripped and hit his head on a rampart, the edge of his helmet digging into his skull. The throat of the third was cut.

There weren't many men still left at Winterfell; many had died in the fight against Stannis, and most of the survivors had returned to their lands or their keeps in the far parts of the North. Perhaps twenty remaining soldiers were quartered servant's mess. In the morning, the castle folk would find it a morgue, half of the men a sickly greenish white, eyes open, hands clutching at their throats. Of those that remained, a third were vomiting uncontrollably, bile and occasionally blood, and two were dead, blood spilling elegantly over their bedclothes.

It wasn't until the dogs broke free that the lord realized something was amiss. He rushed from his bedroom in the tower onto the terrace, and in the dim light spilling from the door to the kitchens, he saw the dogs spill from the kennel, chasing a man — the kennel master — who screamed as his animals ripped him to pieces.

He called to his the two men that stood by his door at night but they did not answer. Furious, he opened his door and found one on the floor and the second pinned to a door, a dagger driven through his open mouth into the soft wood behind. When he went back into his room to get his sword there was a woman sitting in his bed that he did not recognize. She had dark brown hair, so dark that it was almost black, and very pale skin. Beneath soft, youthful cheeks was a sharp jawline and a full mouth. Her grey eyes watched him underneath dark, full brows.

He felt a surge of excitement so satisfying that he knew it could only mean one thing: he was about to die.

* * *

**NOTES

Who is Arya now? Ok, you probably got that one. I just had to get Arya single-handedly taking back Winterfell in there. But she also does it in a super angsty damaged way, well because she is kind of psychologically traumatized. But at least not as messed up as Ramsey. Why does she do it, exactly? what are her deeper motives? TBD


	10. Chapter 10

**10\. Gendry**

* * *

When he stumbled back to the camp, weaponless, disoriented, half frozen, bleeding again from his thigh, and with a large bump on his head, and told Anguy that Kyra was gone, Anguy thankfully didn't press.

Gendry wanted to explain but didn't know how to start. He hadn't told anyone in the Brotherhood about Jaqen Ha'gar; in fact over the years he had almost forgotten that the faceless man had existed. And to claim that the girl that they had been traveling with was like that man — that she could change her face at will — and that that girl was none other than the long dead Arya Stark, whose direwolf had saved them from Stannis's soldiers —

On the other hand, he'd seen more unbelievable things.

The swords confused him. How had she come to carry the Widow's Wail, and why did she hide it from him? Why did she take Oathbreaker? _She_ confused him. Why hadn't she told him who he was? Did she think he would have tried to ransom her or use her? If she didn't want them to know who she was, why had she chosen to travel with them? Why had she picked him, specifically, when she could have—

Gods, he had deflowered Arya Stark.

In the morning they re-dressed Edric's wound, hoisted him onto his horse, and tied him to the horse's neck so that he wouldn't fall. Anguy rode in front on Kyra's mare and Gendry behind, the bridle of Edric's mount tied to the back of Anguy's saddle. Gendry took a sword from one of the dead men to replace Oathbreaker. They left Anguy's skittish horse behind when Gendry reiterated that Kyra wouldn't be coming back.

Before they'd ridden more than a mile Edric begged to be untied, as the horse's movement jostled his injured shoulder. He sat up for the rest of the day, looking all the while like he was about to faint. Gendry leaned back in the saddle as far as he could, but that didn't keep his leg wound from opening up several times. The road was a beautiful white from the fresh snow, and northern evergreens grew thick on either side.

They continued in this manner, largely without speaking, for almost a week. By the third day Edric could largely manage by himself. The wound was clean, and almost entirely in muscle; he kept his left arm tightly bound to his side but could hold the reins and even draw his sword with his right. In some ways he was in better shape than Anguy, who still struggled to draw a bow with his sprained wrist. Gendry's gash left a nasty scar but otherwise didn't both him much.

The drifts were too deep in the woods for the horses to make much progress, and so for the most part they stayed on the road. They walked much of the time, leading the horses through patches of ice and around fallen trunks and mounds of snow. At night they looked for cottages, sometimes stopping early or riding late to find one; it was too cold to sleep in the open if they could help it. They met two more groups of soldiers; one trio on foot, who eyed Gendry's bulk and moved on, and one group of five that looked even more road worn then they were; one man was missing an arm, and another was slung across their only horse. Anguy managed to draw an arrow and after a moment of tense silence both groups of travelers continued in their respective directions.

"Yer going the wrong way!" the injured man on the horse yelled at them as they left.

Two days from Winterfell they ran into a haggard group of smallfolk heading south—perhaps twenty women, children and old men. A grandfather stepped forward and begged mercy, but when they realized that Edric, Anguy, and Gendry meant no harm they offered to share a meal in exchange for the pair of dead man's boots that Gendry had carried from Moat Caitlin. They had news also; Winterfell had fallen from within, and was now in the hands of the smallfolk, with no lord to claim it.

"I don't like it," the old man had said. "That Ramsey Snow was a bastard in all ways, but I'd rather have a bastard than a ghost. They say it happened all in one night like—three dozen soldiers with their throats cut, and Bolton's head left in the middle of the yard, rolling in the muck. And not a word about who did it. But I can tell you this, it wasn't human, and whatever it was, it'll be back again. Yessir, that's enough for us. We're done with the North."

The next night they found a cottage with its roof half fallen in and the door on its hinges. The hearth was cold, but the ashes were still a dark grey, not yet feathery with age. In the middle of the night Gendry awoke to a scratching sound a few feet from where he slept. A small girl, maybe 10, dressed in rags and covered in dirt, had clawing at the earth around one of the hearthstones and pryed it up to recover something wrapped in a dirty cloth. She saw him and froze, unable to tear her eyes away from his blue ones. He looked back and tried to tell her silently it was alright, he wouldn't say anything. She grabbed her bundle and ran past the sleeping men.

* * *

They arrived at Winterfell a day later.

The first sign of the fabled keep was a line of smoke rising across the horizon. At first he thought the castle might be burning, but no, it was a narrow column, the breath of a controlled flame. The plain surrounding the castle was surrounded by snow, drifts that in some places were taller than a man. The dark stone of the walls was glazed with sheets of ice, that clung to the rock in crevices between stones, at corners, and climbed up the bottom from the sea of white. The sun was out today, for the first time in a week, and little streams of water were running down the sides of the castle.

The road that ran to the gates was packed down and strewn with grit and straw, in better condition than much of the Kingsroad. The heavy outer gate was open, although the portcullis was closed; Gendry noticed that a tattered black flag with the face of a wolf was flying above the right tower.

"Halt!" a gruff voice yelled when they were about one hundred paces from the gates. "Who are ye and who do ye fight for?"

"We fight for no one!" Edric called back. "But we journey to defend the north from the scourge of Winter, to defend the seven kingdoms against the evil of all evils, to fight the ones that walk beyond death! We are—"

"Aye shut up! Throw your weapons down, or you'll be dead before you take another step!"

Edric sputtered slightly. They couldn't see anyone from where they stood.

Gendry sighed and looked at Anguy, and then drew his short iron sword and tossed it to the ground a few feet in front of his horse. Anguy dismounted, and carefully placed his bow beside it. Edric awkwardly unbuckled his sword belt with his right hand and handed it to Anguy, who placed it beside the bow.

"Stupid idea Gen," Anguy muttered on his way back to his horse. "Although at least they'll shoot us clean, and we won't have to fight."

Gendry scowled. He still couldn't see anyone. He squinted up against the bright winter sun and saw the voice coming from a portly, older man peering from slit in the stone in the middle of the tower to the right of the gate. Beside him was an archer, bow drawn, who couldn't have been older than 12.

"Al'ight now, back up!" The three travelers complied, urging their tired horses to move. "Tha's enough! Now, who de ye fight fer? Everyone fights fer someone," the man said. "Or did. Are ye Stannis men?"

"We are knights of the Brotherhood without Banners, and serve Lady Stoneheart, the living vessel Lord of Light," Gendry called as loudly as he could, remembering the words Thoros used to call when the situation called for it. "We are traveling to join our Brothers at Castle Black. We mean you no harm, we seek only a warm hearth and a chance to trade our gold for bread."

There was a pause, and then the man shouted, "The Brotherhood, you say? We heard here they fought for Stannis. They're all dead, I suspect."

Edric sagged in his saddle and Anguy must have tensed, because his horse shook its mane. Gendry mind raced through those he remembered — Thoros, Red John, Kerril, Spence. All gone. Was the Lady Dead? Could the Lady die? Of course the Lady pledged the Brothers to Stannis. His enemy was the Boltons, and the Boltons as much as the Freys had planned the Red Wedding. And Stannis had aimed to recapture Winterfell, the Lady's home. Not for the first time, Gendry wished fervently that the Brotherhood had never found her, that Beric had never kissed her, that she had never risen.

Gendry heard his own voice respond. "That is news to us, sir. But our needs are still the same. Grant us leave to stay in your halls for the night."

"How do I know ye ain't lying?"

"You don't." Gendry said. "But you saw us come from the Southern road. And we can see you need help. Anguy here, he is one of the finest archers in the Riverlands. And Sir Edric is a trained knight."

"And you?" called the portly man.

"I'm a blacksmith."

* * *

They put him to work as soon as they'd stabled the horses, mainly mending tools, barrels, door hinges. The weapons could wait, said Barth, the portly man who had questioned them at the gates. He had been a brewer in a town near Winterfell when Eddard Stark ruled, and had lost his left leg in a boar hunt twenty years ago. Now he was the chief steward of Winterfell.

Winterfell's blacksmith had been flayed a week ago by Lord Ramsey, they said. The smoke was from a large bonfire out back; they were still burning the bodies of the Bolton guards who had died three days ago. They burned all bodies now, Barth said. Stannis' army had brought south with them tales of armies of the the dead, that stopped fighting only when cut to pieces, and the Wilding refugees that, if a fire large enough could not be kindled, would drag the dead behind them until one could.

More smallfolk poured into Winterfell everyday, mainly orphaned children and tenants of the surrounding lands who, Barth said, had been starving and freezing in their cottages for weeks. Now that the Boltons were gone, they came to the one place around for miles that still had adequate supplies of food, and walls that could withstand the heavy winter storms. Most came gratefully, but some came grudgingly, or even in fear, disturbed like the old man on the road who had told tales of ghosts.

"It was a White Walker, I say," hissed a woman while Gendry, Anguy, and Edric took their midday meal, a tasteless mush made from oats, vegetables, and hog fat. "It came and it murdered those folk, and I tell ye it's here still, all dress up as a man! Here, in this hall, you'll find it, rotting flesh hid up underneath a cloak, wearing' the face of an innocent!"

There were few fighting men among the smallfolk, and fewer left in the castle. Barth asked Anguy to look after the watch, and put him in charge of a handful of boys and a few girls, all of them barely large enough to string a bow. Anguy told Barth that Gendry was a great swordsman, and despite his protests Gendry found himself teaching a group of eight to fourteen year old boys the same exercises that Brienne had taught him on the road south six months ago. Occasionally a Bolton dissenter or a Stannis deserter would arrive at the gates, much like they had, and if Barth thought them sincere, he let them in and gave them to Anguy or Gendry. Edric healed slowly, and helped teach the boys Gendry taught, or took shifts at the main gate.

Gendry still spent as much time as possible in the forge, as there was much work to be done. The boys he was teaching to fight took turns helping him, bringing him wood, feeding the fire, cleaning rusted tools for mending. There was an older boy with orange hair, Calin, who had been helping Milkken, and Gendry let him take on smaller tasks.

Barth often came into the forge to sit and discuss the keep's administration. Gendry listened quietly and occasionally offered input when asked, although he didn't quite understand why the man wanted Gendry's opinion. Food wasn't an immediate issue —thanks to the extortion the Boltons, most of the storehouses were full, although more smallfolk streamed into Winterfell everyday, and Barth was worried the grain wouldn't last until spring. More pressing were the envoys of the lords of the north, who began to arrive only a day after Anguy, Gendry, and Edric to stake their right to Winterfell. They demanded more hospitality and better food than Barth felt he could offer, and as a whole they seemed unwilling to contribute to its repair or maintenance. Worst were the rumors coming from the North. Jon Snow, Bastard of Winterfell and Commander of the Night's Watch, had been killed by his own brothers two moons ago, and the wildings he had settled into the Gift south of the Wall were in open revolt against the new leadership at Castle Black. The Wall seemed weakest when strength was needed most; there were rumors of a dark army gathering opposite the wall—an army of the dead.

Gendry had finished mending the castle's essential tools and had just begun to work on weapons and armor when Barth had received a raven from Old Town. Some maester wrote that Winterfell must set itself to making weapons from obsidian, a strange black rock that Gendry had never heard of. The maester said that, according to a scroll he found in Old Town, there was a store of obsidian buried under the northeast corner of the First Keep, and that more could be mined in the mountains between Ironrath and Shadow Tower. Along with the advice were strongly worded threads about the coming army of the dead. Barth, who had never received a raven before and seemed to consider its contents an edict from the Gods, put as many smallfolk as he could find to digging around the ancient keep.

The envoys came from nearly every corner of the North: Karkhold, White Harbor, Flint's Finger, the Barrowlands, Hornwood, and Torrehen's Square. There were lords and second sons, chiefs of mountain clans, weedy crannogmen, elderly knights, and men-at-arms, most of who were missing an arm, a leg, or an eye from the wars. The Stark line had stretched unbroken back to the age of the First Men, and no one had the obvious claim. Barth said there were far fewer envoys than there should be; too many houses had lost all of their adult males, and many more were snowed in, trapped in their keeps with what food they had managed to save until the snows melted.

To Gendry's great annoyance, most of the envoys spent most of their time lounging in the hall loudly announcing their blood ties to the Starks or organizing hunting trips from which they returned empty-handed, frozen, and angry. They also seemed to spent a great deal of time peeking into the forge, or standing to watch while Gendry instructed the boys, although they rarely spoke to him. Gendry hated it. It reminded him of working in Tobho Mott's shop, when Lord Arryn, and then Lord Stark had come to watch him, had said nothing, and then left.

Nothing good comes of watching me, he wanted to retort as he flattened a stake or mended a helm. Stay away. It wasn't until the boys he led in exercises started calling him "milord" that he turned on Anguy and Edric.

"I told you never to repeat what I said outside of King's Landing," said Gendry, more heatedly than he had intended, when he managed to get the two of them alone, lounging in a corner after their midday meal.

"We didn't, Gen," said Anguy sharply. They hadn't been on easy terms since Lem's death. "They can see it on your face, just the way Brienne saw it, just the way the Lady knew it too. There are men here who've served with Stannis, who knew the King before he died."

"Doesn't seem like you'e done anything to deny—"

"Some of the Glover men asked us who you were," cut in Edric, trying to play peacemaker. "We said you were a bastard from the south who used to be a smith's apprentice in King's Landing before joining up with us, and that was all we knew."

"Don't see why you're pretending you're just some whore's brat anyway," muttered Anguy.

Gendry was growing hot, but he didn't want to get in a fight with Anguy. "That's exactly what I am," he said. "I am just some whore's brat, and I've no intention of being anyone else. So just keep your story straight, alright?"

"There's going to be an assembly next week, Gen," said Anguy tensely. "They're going to pick the next Lord of Winterfell. And you know what? Not one of these Northern scumbags left is worth a scarp. If you stand up the smallfolk here would support you. And so would Barth."

Gendry stared at him. What he said was ridiculous. Bastards didn't become lords, and even if he wasn't a bastard, Baratheons didn't become lords of Winterfell. "I'm the blacksmith," he said flatly.

Edric was studying his boots. He said in a small voice, "Lords and smiths really aren't that different, Gen."

* * *

A week later Barth announced that there would be a Kingsmoot. The envoys from the houses of the North were everywhere now. They had run out of room in the halls and many had pitched tents in the courtyards. One poor lord had forced to pitch his tent halfway into the sty where the hogs were kept. The boys Gendry taught had been displaced and several slept in the forge with him, lying blankets next to the anvil or underneath the small bed where Gendry slept, in the room that had been Milken's.

Gendry had found the last week very unsettling. First to approach were two crooked, fierce looking chiefs of the mountain clans. They watched Gendry from the doorway of the forge as many of the lords had done that week, occasionally grunting to each other in a language that Gendry did not understand. After he had finished pounding out a helmet, they entered and one of the clapped him on the back in a friendly sort of way, and pressed a palm-sized piece of quartz that had been carved into a rough disk into his hand. Gendry was so surprised he hadn't thought to refuse, and mountain clan men said something more in the language he didn't understand, clapped him on the shoulder again, and left.

The next day an old knight watched Gendry lead the castle youth in their exercises. The group had swelled to the point where Gendry felt it was necessary to lead the exercises in two groups; while one grouped worked through the set of lunges, blocks, and thrusts, he paired off the second group for practice sparring. When he sat down to rest on the long wooden bench lining the practice yard, the old man spoke up.

"So you're the Bartheon whelp."

Gendry wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced at the old man. "I don't know who my father was," Gendry said dully.

"Well I say you are. I fought in Robert's army, and you're his spitting image. I've never seen any so near as like in the Seven Kingdoms, least of all those golden brats that wear his crown."

Gendry looked ahead. He was already tired of this conversation.

"Now we're here in a tidy predicament, you know. The Stark line stretched back eight thousand years. There has never been a Kingsmoot in the North. And we are not a negotiating people. Chances that the meeting will end without bloodshed are slim to none, and civil war is likely. There are those among us who think an outsider would be the best choice."

"I've no desire to be a lord," Gendry said.

The knight looked at him thoughtfully. "Then perhaps you would make a good one," he said.

The next day Lady Mormont stopped him in the hall after breakfast. "They say you are the son of Robert," she said in a loud, commanding voice that made Gendry wince internally. The hall grew quiet. "I want you to know that if you stand at the Kingsmoot, House Mormont would support you."

Part of Gendry wanted to refuse on the spot, but he could tell that Maege Mormont was not used to being refused. Instead he nodded solemnly. Arnolf Karstark, who was sitting two tables away, spit onto the floor and left the hall.

—

On the day of the Kingsmoot all of the lords assembled in the great hall. Perhaps 40 of the houses of the north were represented, in some form or another. Barth had wisely ordered that no weapons nor men-at-arms be permitted inside the hall. The tall windows were fully open, letting white light stream into the room. Smallfolk had climbed into the window recesses and were standing five thick at the door, each straining to have a better look. The boys of Anguy's watch kept them back.

One of the lords of Umber stood up and announced in a haughty voice that they must deliberate in the old way; any man of noble blood who wished for consideration must stand up and state their claim. Each house would name a representative, and that representative would vote. If no candidate received a majority, then the top ten candidates would restate their claim, and so on, with a smaller pool, until the winner could be chosen.

Arnolf Karstark was the first to stand. He argued that the Karstarks were more closely related to the Starks than any other house in the north, and that with the marriage of Alys the heir to the house and to the north was rightfully his son Arthor, now that his elder son Cregan had taken the black. Next to speak was Attwen Slate, a shriveled man of forty with a club foot. Then Lord Ondrew Locke, who spoke on behalf of his great-grandson, Olin, a boy of 10. And so it went. Lady Mormont and her daughters, all of whom looked more king-like than the aged lords who spoke, looked disgusted. An hour went by, then two, and the attention of the Kingsmoot slowly moved around the room. When Jonelle Cerwyn sat down after making a half hearted claim for her house, all eyes in the room focused on Gendry. Barth looked at him with a half-plea in his eyes.

Gendry stood up.

"I am a bastard and a southerner," he began. "I have lived in these halls less than the space of two moons. I have no claim to any title. I have no claim to the North." He swallowed. "And yet…"

While he spoke he saw Calin slip through Anguy's line and run towards Barth. The boy put something in the old man's hands - a scroll, and the steward squinted to read it, his mouth sounding out the words. Suddenly he stood up.

"There has been a Raven!" Barth interrupted, breathing loudly. "An army is marching North along the Kingsroad—led by Sansa Stark!"

* * *

**NOTES

This is another Gendry chapter that covers a lot of ground and therefore is a bit awkward, and also perhaps has an unnecessary subplot. I needed to get some more Gendry character development in there though. He's strong and responsible and charismatic but also angry and not very happy about the role into which he's been dropped.


	11. 11 Boy

**11\. Boy**

* * *

White Harbor was the only place in the Seven Kingdoms, steward of House Manderly Whitt Vanderlin liked to boast, that had profited from the game of thrones.

With trade on the Kingsroad virtually shut down, and most of the smaller ports in the North impassable due to ice, the city on the Narrow Sea was virtually the only route still available for goods, people, and armies to move from the North to South. White Harbor was so deep it was said one hundred ships stacked mast on mast would not reach the bottom, and the depth meant that even in the coldest of winters the ocean did not freeze over, and ships bearing grain from Highgarden, fruits and vegetables from Dorne, and cloth and spices from Lys could continue to dock safety.

The inns in town were clogged with northmen seeking passage south. They came from their farms and their villages laden with furs, cloth, cutlery, and anything else of value that they could carry on their backs; they rarely left with more than a purse and the clothes on their back. Whitt Vanderlin shared his lord's affinity for material wealth but not his generosity. He kept the gates of the city open, but always under heavy guard; anyone who refused to to pay the entry tax could remain outside the walls in the snow. That that was not taxed away by the steward of White Harbor went to the innkeeps or the entrepreneurial citizens who allowed travelers to sleep on their floors in return for coin; and what the lodger-takers did not keep went to the captains in exchange for a cramped cabin, or more frequently, permission to huddle on a cold, damp deck.

The seaport was busier than it had ever been, but over the bustle hung an oppressive atmosphere that made turned the citizens against the visitors, and the the visitors against each other. But with prosperity came opportunity, and for energetic smallfolk who weren't afraid of the chill sea wind, there was work to be found.

One of the newer residents of the Harbor, was a blonde haired boy, perhaps thirteen, with a freckled face and a serious expression. No one knew where he had come from and no one knew his name; they knew only that he could usually be found by the harbor, and spoke as little as possible. When a new ship docked, the boy would help the harbor men unload the cargo, squeezing into difficult to reach spots and sometimes knocking free the ice that had glued the crates together or frozen a barrel to the floor. He'd run back to the pier to help the burly dock men lash the unloaded cargo to short sleds that would carry it across the square to the Old Mint, where excess goods were stored. At the end of the day the harbor men would throw him a coin or two, and look the other way if his coat was a bit bulkier than it had been in the morning.

The boy slept most nights in a warehouse next to the Harbormaster's Wife, a tavern that served considerably better meat pies than the Lek down the street. Usually the captain and the first mate, along with any other men of rank or means on the ships would sup there, while the common sailors and most of the northern refugees stayed loyal to the Lek's reliable fat-and-gristle. The warehouse was unheated and bitterly cold, but the boy had constructed a ragged nest of furs next to the chimney of the Harbormaster's Wife. The warm bricks kept the spot and the boy quite comfortably warm.

If anyone had bothered to flip the loose floorboard underneath the furs they would have found not one but three purses full of gold, more than enough to dine and sleep in style for a month at any of White Harbor's establishments, but of course, no one did. Next to the purses lay something even more odd: three swords, two long and broad, one short and thin, each carefully wrapped in rags.

* * *

On some days the boy would climb to the rim of the Seal Stone and watch the sun set over the whitecaped horizon, or gaze North at the icy, windswept shore. On other nights the boy would buy a bowl of stew from the innkeep at the Harbormaster's Wife or the Lek, and listen to the men talk. The seamen, happy to be in a place that was warm and did not stink of brine, paid him no notice.

At the end of one particularly busy day, the boy sat in his favorite corner at the Harbormaster's wife making his way through half of an eel pie. The tavern was crowded with the crews of a Braavosi ship that had sailed from Pentos, and two Dornish schooners, one that had come all the way from Old Town.

There was a maester among the Dornish sailors that looked familiar to the boy, although he couldn't remember he had seen him. He was thick about the middle and still had the round, fat cheeks of a child, covered by a scruffy beard. His was the shortest master's chain the girl had ever seen — it barely fit around his rather thick neck. From where he sat he could make out links of Iron, Black Iron, Copper, Yellow Gold, and tin. Over the rough brown robe of a maester was a tattered dark cloak; the boy thought perhaps it had once been black.

The boy was so absorbed in the maester that it took him some minutes to realize that one of the Pentosi sailors was watching him. The man was old for a sailor, with a patch over one eye and long, half-grey hair pulled back with a leather tie. His lips were curled into a faint smile and his one eye crinkled slightly with amusement. For a second their gazes locked. Then boy stuffed the remainder of his eel pie into his pocket and slipped as quickly as he could out the door.

Once outside, the boy made several sharp turns, cutting away from Fisherman's square into a narrow alley, and then up an even narrower staircase that twisted up the hillside, towards the Seal Stone. He knew the old sailor had followed him. The staircase ended in a locked door that the boy knew ended in the house of a Manderly vassal. More important to the boy were the uneven stones beside the door, that he quickly scaled. From there he jumped lightly from roof to roof, gripping the slanted slate with the hatched leather on the toes of his boots, cutting back towards the thin column of smoke that rose from the chimney of the Harbormaster's Wife, a line of gray against the violet blue Northern sky.

He waited in an eave of tavern roof for some time. The sailor had not followed him onto the roofs, and he did not see him in the square in front of the Habormaster's Wife. A light snow began. He waited until his fingers had gone numb and his eyelashed were coated with flakes.

From the tavern roof he jumped to the deteriorating roof of the warehouse, where he climbed to the far corner and carefully swung himself through the small hole below the eaves. He ran in relief towards the pile of cloth on the opposite side, and hurriedly swept away the furs to expose the floorboard beneath.

"A girl is not a boy," said a voice in the dark.

The boy fell back onto her heels and looked around wildly. She recovered quickly and drew a short knife from her boot.

"A servant of the faceless god does not kill another servant," said the voice with a tone of amused disappointment. "But a servant wonders, does a girl still serve?"

"Where are you?" said the boy.

"A girl has taken many lives," said the man, stepping into a shaft of pale blue light that shone through a small crack in the roof.

The boy straightened when she saw the man and her expression took on a subtle, determined set.

"They deserved to die."

"It was not their time. It was not your task."

"Valar Morghulis."

"The lives must be repaid."

The boy shivered. The warehouse was bitterly cold apart from the few inches near the chimney, but she did not shiver for lack warmth. The man took a step closer, examining her face in the dark.

"Does a girl still serve?"

"I still serve." The phrase was even, and the boy's face was blank. The man studied her quietly and then smiled faintly.

"Who are you?"

"No one."

The man hit her, quickly and violently, with the back of his hand. The boy bent under the force of the blow, her hand involuntarily going to her jaw where the man had hit. But quickly she straightened.

"Who are you?"

"No one," she said, slightly louder.

The man hit her again, this time sending her staggering a step and making her left ear ring. She straightened again, her lip starting to blister from the first blow, and looked the man in the eye. The man smiled, a full smile this time.

"The god has no need for no one," the man said, looking at her steadily. "The god calls Arya Stark."

The boy's expression changed rapidly, confusion and surprise showing on his thin pale face. Behind the confusion was something else, an emotion that the boy flashed briefly across her face before the boy managed to control it, and looked back at the one-eyed man, jaw set.

"A girl is afraid."

"I am not afraid!" said the boy hotly. The man hit her, not hard this time, but on the side that had already been hit, so it hurt.

"A girl lies. Does a girl still serve?"

In a small voice, the boy replied: "I still serve."

The man smiled again, and clasped his hands in front of him, beneath his cloak. "Your task is the same. Deliver the swords to the smith at Winterfell."

This time, the boy's expression did not change, although there was a hint of anger in her voice. "The smith at Winterfell is dead."

"There is a new smith. You will deliver the swords to him." The man paused. "Then you will go to Castle Black. The god demands two lives. First, the life of the red woman. She is a servant of the Lord of Light, and she will tell you what you must do."

The man paused again. "The second life you must take is the life of Catelyn Stark."

* * *

**NOTES

This is the chapter where Arya's motivations become a lot more clear. " _Oh, she was doing it for the swords the whole time?"_ So yea, in case I wasn't clear, the house of white and black told her to go find the swords and bring them to "the blacksmith at winterfell", so she went to King's Landing and stole Widow's Wail from the Red Keep. She didn't know where Oathbreaker was but then Gendry showed up with it saying he was going North and she was like "Why how convenient." Then he blew her cover so she grabbed the goods and made for Winterfell, but when she go there Milken was dead and she was like "wut, fuck this, fuck them" and went to go hide out at White Harbor. But the faceless men found her and are like "go try again." And we know who the smith at Winterfell is now...

Its times like these when I wonder how this plot got so complicated


	12. 12 Gendry

**12\. Gendry**

* * *

After the raven the northern lords mainly left Gendry alone.

The rest of the Kingsmoot had of course been lost in an uproar. The Karstarks had immediately declared that this Sansa was likely a fake, like the "Arya Stark" who had married Ramsey Bolton, or that the raven itself had been a lie. Lord Umber had demanded to know from whom the raven was sent, and tore the message in two trying to snatch it from Barth's fingers. Lady Lyessa Flint had loudly accused them both of treason. Gendry had felt a deep sense of relief.

The arguments continued for several days, and it soon became clear that no one was willing to take decisive action until the existence of Sansa and her army was disproved, which meant, at least for the short term, the lords and their men-at-arms were going nowhere. Barth miraculously managed to the corral the lords into volunteering men both for a proper castle guard and for a patrol to keep order in the devastated countryside. Wildings fleeing south were a problem; instead of begging at Winterfell for provisions like the Westerosi smallfolk they took what they could from those they met. The patrol brought back more rumors of an army of the dead behind the wall.

The newly-formed castle guard put Anguy out of a job. He and some of the boys occasionally took watch shifts, but Anguy declined to participate the patrols. Gendry almost never saw him, although he some evenings he heard him drunkenly singing with a few of the Karstark men. When they did encounter each other, they didn't speak.

Edric was nearly healed and seemed to enjoy instructing swordsmanship, so Gendry turned the group over to him and a man-at-arms from House Glover, and devoted his time to the forge.

The smallfolk had successfully dug up two chests of obsidian that had been buried more than thirty feet underground at the base of the First Keep. What must have once been fine oak had nearly rotted away, one of the chests fell apart when they tried to open it. Both chests were filed with a fine black dust, buried in which were larger pieces of the strange black rock. Some of the pieces had already been shaped into dagger-like rods, but others were shapeless lumps, no more useful as a weapon than a chunk of rock.

As the blacksmith, it fell to Gendry to figure out what to do with the obsidian. At first he tried setting some of the longer pieces to a metal hilt to make a dagger or short sword, but the black rock proved almost impossible to shape by a blacksmith's craft: it melted at a higher temperature than steel, and once molton, cooled to quickly, leaving Gendry with too little time to shape the tang. After he had shattered two pieces he gave up on the approach and sent the usable pieces to the cordwainer, who wrapped one side the sharp rock in leather or in pieces of rope to make crude daggers.

Next Gendry tried mixing the black dust with steel and forging weapons from there; but the same problem applied; the metal heated poorly and then cooled unevenly, resulting in fissures or at best a highly warped blade. After many days of frustration he forged a pure steel broadsword, and while it was still hot filled the long, shallow grooves on the side with obsidian dust. The result was terribly ugly; the obsidian did not melt itself but stuck in the molten steel like sand, making the flat of the blade rough and bumpy but the blade still sharp.

Gendry laughed out loud at his creation and left to look for some lunch. The winter air was a relief after the heat of the forge, although Gendry knew that he would soon be longing for the warmth again. He was lucky to work in one of the warmest spaces in the castle; in King's Landing the heat had often been a trial, but here it was pleasant. He realized as he left that he hadn't left the forge, except for food, for nearly a week.

Anguy was sprawling in a corner of the hall with a Karstark man, Gendry thought his name was Graf. There was a flask beside him, and he looked flush; he had been drinking, Gendry thought, although it was hardly past midday. He didn't see Gendry at first because he was laughing so hard at some joke that the boy sitting by them must have told. Gendry hadn't seen him laugh that way since before Lem died.

Gendry didn't recognize the boy, who was still gesturing to renewed guffaws from Anguy and Gaff. He looked about 13 but tall for his age with straw blonde hair, green eyes and a few freckles. Something about him looked familiar and Gendry found himself staring. Anguy noticed his gaze and suddenly the laughter stopped. Gendry quickly grew angry. He didn't know why Anguy had to be so difficult.

He quickly ate a bowl of stew from the kitchens and started back across the outer yard towards the forge. The patrol was returning and he paused to hear their report to Lord Umber, who had appointed himself the castle master-at-arms.

"Direwolf," said the patrol leader breathlessly, before he had completely dismounted. "There was a Direwolf in the eastern woods, nearly as big as my horse."

"Lady Sansa" said a man-at-arms wearing Glover colors.

"Don't be a fool," snapped Lord Umber. "Lady Sansa's wolf is dead, everyone knows that." He turned to the patrol leader. "It must be wild. Don't kill it if you can help it, that's a bad omen—but double your patrol."

No, not Sansa, Gendry thought. The patrol disbursed but he was frozen to the spot, a wild excitement running through his veins. He couldn't let her see that he knew. He couldn't let anyone see—she would run. A crowd had spilled from the hall into the yard to hear the patrols' report and she was surely among them, and was watching him now. Stiffly he returned to the forge.

The afternoon was a blur. He mended a helm and forged three new broadswords—Barth wanted to arm some of the smallfolk—and he knew he was working quickly, almost feverishly, but he hardly seemed to notice the work.

It had been dark for some time when he finally paused to rest and drink some water. His excitement from earlier was gone and in its place was a deep fatigue; he stared moodily into the fire, which had begun to die down. Fire, sacred to R'hllor, he thought bitterly. He knew more about fire than most servants of the red god. He knew its moods, strengths, and powers. He knew its limitations.

The helmet he had mended earlier was on the end of the bench where he was sitting, and with a sigh he picked it up and began to polish it with a rag and a mixture of oil and grit he kept on hand for the purpose. The mixture was too oily and on a whim he threw in a pinch of obsidian dust.

The obsidian seemed to work wonders. Gendry spat on the helmet and wiped a small area clean; it reflected the fire almost like a mirror. He peered at it closely and turned it, marveling at the detail with which he could see the rest of the room. There was a window on the yard side that was set high in the wall; on clear nights Gendry could see stars, but tonight, in the reflection of the helmet, he saw something else: a blurry, brown shape and a bit of yellow. A boy, curled into the windowsill.

Gendry paused for a second and then continued polishing slowly. The reflection grew clearer as he did but the boy did not move, and Gendry realized she was waiting for him to leave. She must want some thing here, he thought.

When the helm was bright he put it down. It was far into the night but the fatigue that he had felt earlier was gone. Instead of retiring to the small adjoining room where Milken's bed lay, Gendry took off his smith's apron and bunched it into a pillow, lay down on the bench, and closed his eyes.

The boy waited for a long time, more than a half hour. Gendry started to think he'd imagined the blonde hair in the window, and he started to drift off. Then he heard it, ever so faint, a soft thud on the earthen floor. He waited still, until he heard another sound, a faint scrape. He lept from the pallet and ran towards the door, but the boy was already there. Gendry lunged and yanked the back of his cloak, and then grabbed his hair making him cry out, the swords falling to the floor. He turned the boy around, grabbing his arms.

"Arya," he said.

The boy spat in Gendry's face and kneed him in the groin, causing him to grunt and fold over in pain, but Gendry didn't let go of the boy's arms and instead fell forward, pinning his legs under one knee. He transferred both of the boys wrists to this right hand and with his other hand tore his ragged shirt, grimacing when the boy bit his cheek, drawing blood. But sure enough, there was the misshapen birthmark below the left collarbone, and breasts wound tightly with a linen cloth.

The boy seemed to panic, her attempts to escape still ferocious but undirected. Gendry picked her up bodily, she was really so small, still making sure to hold her arms and her legs, and keeping her teeth as far away from his skin as possible. He carried her to the back room where Milken had slept and threw her onto the bed. She was up at once sliding past him towards the forge, and Gendry had to grab her and pin her again. He dragged her back to the forge and cast around, looking for the old pair of manacles that had been left in the forge for repair long before Gendry had arrived.

When he found them Arya went live, jerking from his grip and hitting the floor, but Gendry kept his hold on her wrists, nails digging into her flesh, and slammed her against the wall, her shoulder and then her head hitting the stone with a crack.

"Don't move dammit!" He yelled. Everything seemed tinged with red. He managed to get one of her ankles inside the old manacles and clamped it shut, still holding her wrists. He fit the other iron cuff fit around her second ankle but it wouldn't shut; he hauled her towards the fire and his tools.

She was crying now. "Let me go," she said. "Please let me go." She spoke with the boy's voice. "Please let me go."

"Not until you talk to me," Gendry growled. His head was hot and unfocused and his breathing was heavy, but there was cool moonlight coming through a small window above him, and the body against his seemed so familiar, calming, almost. But the face, the face was wrong. And that made him furious.

He grabbed his hammer from the anvil and with one blow force the manacle shut. Ayra screamed, and he knew he the manacle must have pinched the skin; there was blood running down her ankle over her foot. Gendry fumbled for the clasp and managed to shut it, and then flipped Arya onto her stomach and used the remains of her shirt to tie her hands behind her back. I'll have to get rope for later, he thought.

"Gendry?" Came Barth's gruff voice from down the doorway, accompanied by a terrified looking boy —Calin— who must have gone to fetch him. "What in seven hells are ye doing?" Gendry stepped back from his position and the blonde-haired boy slid down the wall, face expressionless, body limp, staring straight ahead. "Who is this boy? Gods, you can't just go lockin' up people!"

Barth looked vaguely horrified. Gendry felt his face flush. "It's not what it looks like! She stole from me," he said hotly, before he realized how stupid that sounded.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but that there is a—"

"No it's a woman, and she's a thief and a mu—" Gendry paused. Barth was looking at Arya, whose breast binding was clearly visible through the tatters of her shirt. Arya stared straight ahead. Barth looked at her face again and his expression of horror deepened.

"Look, just trust me. You have to trust me on this," Gendry said. "I'll look after her. She just can't get away, not right now."

Barth gave him another troubled look before looking at Arya again. "Look here boy, I don't know what that is…" he said. "Just, don't keep it out here where the boys can see… and by the Old Gods, don't keep it here long."

—

When he woke the yellow-haired boy was staring at him with a livid look of hate on his face. Last night Gendry had found a bit of rope in the back of the forge and tied his hands more firmly behind him, and then tied his manacled feet to the legs of the small bed. The blood from the cut on her ankle, which thankfully had proved to be shallow, had congealed around the iron of the manacle bloodied the cloth that covered the straw; Gendry could see that the the right side of her face, that had been forced into the pallet was mainly yellow and blue, and that she had kicked off the furs he had covered her with sometime in the night and was shivering.

He himself was on the floor, half-covered by his cloak; he must have drifted watching her. Beside him were four daggers that he hand found on Arya's body the night before, two in her short boots, which he had removed, one on her belt, and one strapped to the inside of her leg. There was pale sunlight streaming through the small barred window near the foot of the bed; too small for a human to slip through, Gendry hoped.

Gendry ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes. He sat down on the edge of the bed and she turned her head into the pallet away from him. He put the furs back into place, and readjusted the ties on her wrists where they were chafing.

"Arya," he began. "Kyra." He ran his hands through his hair again. " Whoever you are. Look, I'm sorry it has to be this way. But I couldn't just let you go." He paused again. The yellow hair sent a shiver down his back. "I don't know what happened to you, but I need you—"

What did he need? Oathbreaker wasn't his, not really. It was more hers than his, really, if you thought that the metal had come from her father's greatsword. She hadn't hurt him—well, she had knocked him unconscious, but apart from that, she and her wolf had saved their lives. All she had done was lie to him. His hand, which was resting on the fur by her shoulder, tightened.

"I need you to show me your face, Arya. I need to know it's you, and I need you to tell me you're alright."

The yellow-haired boy said nothing. Gendry sighed and left the room. The door didn't lock,so he took some more rope and a padlock—there were many useful things to be found in a forge—and tied it messily shut. He started the fire for the day's work and went to find some food in the hall. When he brought it back the fire was hot. He had taken a bowl of the oat-y mush they were serving back with him, but realized that giving her food would require untying her hands, and Gendry didn't feel up to that it at the moment. Instead he started work on a few pieces of chain mail. It was delicate, absorbing work, and half the day was over and the gruel long cold before he got around to it.

"Sit up," he said.

The green-eyed boy stared resentfully at the floor. Gendry almost smiled. "Look, I'm not going to let you go until you talk to me, but I'm not going to let you starve either. And you won't be able to eat when I tie your hands again, so you might as well eat now."

Arya-not-arya did nothing. The bruise on the side of her face had really gotten quite ugly.

"I'll get you something for that," said Gendry.

When he came back with some snow and a wet rag the boy had not moved. He loosed the ties on her hands and left the snow, the rag, and the half-eaten bowl of gruel on the floor. In the evening, when he returned with more food, the scene was the same - except the boy had curled up at the bottom of the bed, leaving the food untouched, and the snow had melted into the packed earthen floor. When he checked on his prisoner before sleep, the same—save for the rat that had half overturned one of the bowls and was licking at it's contents.

"You're being ridiculous," he snapped. "And you know we can't afford to waste food, not even for the the spoiled Lady of Winterfell."

The boy sat bolt upright and shot him a furious look, and then turned and spat on the food. The rat scattered away.

"Fine!" Gendry yelled. "Have it your way!" He stalked out of the room and locked the door, and made himself a bed on the bench with his cloak.

* * *

The next day was the same. Gendry brought food and water in the morning, and again the boy refused to touch it. (This time Gendry put it on a stool to keep it from the rats.) After lunch he went to the laundress and asked if she had some spare clothes; the boy's shirt was of course in tatters and his breeches weren't in much better condition. The laundress asked if he wanted clothes for a boy or girl and he said, "either" which left her confused and indignant. She gave him a homespun dress.

When he went in to leave the dress and more food he saw that his morning offering had not been touched and began to worry. She was too small to go without food for bruise looked to get worse and he looked pale. Was he really hurting her by keeping her here? He poured his frustration into his work, and fell asleep exhausted on the bench late in the night.

When he woke he lept up and ran to the padlocked door. The wooden frame of the bed was broken where the manacles had been pegged and yesterday's bowls were empty. The breeches and the remains of the shirt lay in a heap on the floor. In the corner was a light-haired, weeping figure. Gendry ran to her before he thought.

"Kyra," he said.

She lifted her head and Gendry could see no trace of a bruise, but her face looked haggard.

"How could you do this to me?" she said through tears. Gendry had never seen Kyra cry, and he was baffled. "All I've done is help you… I know… I know I took the sword, but I brought it back— I brought both of them— look," she cried dramatically, and pointed her arm towards the open door. Gendry turned and saw an oblong cloth package on the floor of the forge. Through one side of the cloth peeked a glint of gold.

Gendry went to it in a daze and picked up cloth. There, slightly dusty, was Oathbreaker, the blade he had known and loved, and its twin. He stared at the metal speechless. Kyra had stopped crying and come into the forge. He watched as she dragged her feet about the room, searching for something - the key to her chains. She found them and one ankle came free, but the manacle that he had hammered shut, still crusty with dried blood, wouldn't come free. The irons were comically large on her feet. She yelled in frustration and grabbed the hammer from the forge, and, stumbling under its weight, dragging the heavy link behind her, walked to Gendry and pressed it into his hand.

"Gendry, let me go. You need to let me go."

Gendry stared at her dumbly. He had loved this woman, had shared his bed with her for nearly two months, and yet he didn't know her at all. Could she really be the same as the girl he had travelled, fought, and starved with?

"Gendry!" she hissed, a wild look of desperation on her face. She was sweating from the effort of moving the iron on her feet, but still pale.

There was a long pause. "No."

Kyra's expression shifted slightly, the plea turning to anger and then back again. "You're being stupid, Gendry. Take the hammer and get this thing off me. Now."

"Not until you show me your face."

Kyra was angry now, "You are talking about things you don't understand. You stupid — stubborn— bastard, don't you think there is a reason for what I've done? Don't you think I know more than you? All you're doing is getting in the way, like you've always—"

"I SAID NO," Gendry yelled, his face getting hot.

"You let me go right now, or else—"

"Or else WHAT?" Gendry shouted. "Don't you dare tell me I've gotten in the way. All you've ever done is use me. You used me to get yourself here, you used me to protect your precious lady ass when you were a child — and when I refused to give up my chance at happiness to be your — your blacksmith boy you ran away! Do you know how long we looked for you? Do you know how long I waited for you to come back?"

Gendry was the largest man he knew at Winterfell, with the exception perhaps of Lord Umber, and he often intimidated large men without really meaning too. He hadn't yelled like this since they had tried to hang Brienne, but the girl in front of him wasn't backing down.

"USED you! USED you!" She screamed. "I SAVED you. Without me you'd be in pieces at Moat Caitlin — you'd still be slaving at Harrenhal - you'd be dead like Lommy! You ungrateful, stupid, bastard—"

Kyra hoisted the hammer with what must have been all of her strength and swung it at Gendry. Without thinking he dropped the swordsa and threw up his hands to catch it and easily ripped the hammer from her grip. Kyra had thrown her weight behind the hammer and when that weight was suddenly gone she lost her footing and pitched sideways, toppling onto a bench littered with tools and bits of metal and from there too the ground.

Gendry dropped the hammer and rushed to the fallen girl who was covering her face. There was blood leaking from between her fingers. He put his hand on her shoulder to pull her upright but she hit it viciously with

"Get away!" she cried, her voice stifled by her hands and a sob. "GET AWAY!" She dropped her hands from her face and swiveled towards him. Where Kyra's face had been was a terrible mask: where her eyes, mouth, and nose should have been were black holes, and in one eye squirmed a large, white maggot.

Gendry backed away and then turned and ran from the forge, slamming the door behind him. As he fled he could here choked sobs coming from the huddled figure on the floor.

—

He didn't return until nearly dark. He spent most of the day sitting in the hall staring at his food; he must have looked a fright because no one bothered him. After some time he went outside and watched Edric lead the boys in their exercises. They had gotten quite good, Gendry thought. Edric was a natural teacher. He saw that some of them were carrying obsidian daggers.

Gradually his anger cooled, and turned bitter. It was his fault, he thought. Ayra was gone. Kyra was gone. Whatever was in that room was neither of them, and he had been foolish to think that he could bring either of them back.

All he needed to do was go back to the forge and break her chain, and he could be free again. He had no master. There was no Brotherhood. The children were safe, or as safe as they could be, with the sisters in the south. As long as he kept his shot, Anguy would be fine; he might stay at Winterfell, or join the Karstarks. Edric would either take the black or return home to Starfell, where his birthright awaited him. There was nothing to hold him here anymore; he could go wherever he wanted, and be whatever he wanted to be.

When he finally returned to forge and saw that the workroom was empty he thought with relief that she had found a way to free herself and was gone; but when he walked into the back room he saw her.

She was sitting on the bed with her hands clasped around her knees, eyes on the pale patch of sky visible through the small window. The manacle was still around one ankle, chain and empty cuff curled around beside her. Her hair was dark brown, almost black, and falling loose on either side of her face. Her face itself was perfect. The last few years had defined her cheekbones and her jawline, but left the full curve of her cheek. Her mouth and brows were fuller, although the grey eyes beneath them were just the same. Her skin looked new and white.

She looked at him when he came in, and there was nothing in her expression, no flash of welcome, or of hate, or of any emotion at all. Gendry walked to the bed and knelt before her, taking her hands in his. They were ice cold. She looked down at him impassively, and, without changing her expression in the slightest, reached down to lightly trace the side of his face.

Suddenly he wished fervently that instead of this stone cold, perfect image he was looking at the face of holes and maggots. He groaned and jerked her roughly into his arms, kissing her eyes and her forehead and her hair, and pressing her face into his chest. She was freezing and tense but she didn't resist, and gradually he felt her body relax and curl into a ball against his body.

They stayed like that for some time. He rocked her and smoothed her hair, and covered them both the furs that lay tangled at the end of the bed. She smelled like the cold and the forest - like Kyra had smelled. He wanted to know where she had been, what had happened to her, how she had gotten like this, but he didn't want to ask. He was afraid that saying anything would make her want to leave.

"I'm sorry, Arya," he whispered finally. "I'm sorry about your family. I'm sorry that I wasn't there when you needed me. And I want you to know— I want you to know that as long as I'm alive, I'll protect you." He paused. "No matter who you want to be."

She pulled apart from him and looked at him, and their eyes locked. "Gendry," she said. "If you want to protect me, you need to let me go."

"I will. I promise," he said hoarsely. The moonlight had illuminated her hair and a patch of the very white skin of her throat. He drank her in, tried to memorize her features, and what it felt like to be caught in the intensity of her gaze. "But not tonight." Carefully, he put a hand in her hair and traced traced her red lips with his thumb. She tensed and then pushed forward to cover his mouth with hers, and wrapping both hands in his hair and pulling him to her, her legs tightening around his hips. He picked her up and laid her on the bed.

* * *

They both woke with before dawn but lay for some time on the small bed, without saying anything or looking at each other. Their limbs were tangled with the furs and ge could feel her tense as she became more awake. When the first ray of weak sun spilled through the small window, she pulled herself from his embrace and sat up.

Gendry thought for a wild moment thought that he would not let her go, that he would just keep her her, his prisoner, forever. But her face was stone again, and he knew that he had no choice.

Unhurriedly she dressed herself, pulling on the breeches she had arrived in as well as the grey dress Gendry had found for her, as well as one of her boots. She picked up her second boot and the opposite side of the heavy iron still sealed around one ankle and walked calmly into the workroom, her back straight and head high. Like a lady. Gendry walked behind her dumbly, and followed her gaze as she looked down at the strange red-and-black swords that lay where he had dropped them the night before, ignominious in the dust.

"They're yours really—the swords," Gendry said. "They've been yours all along."

"The swords are for you," she said, in a voice that seemed far away. "Your master split them, and you must remake them. You are the blacksmith at Winterfell. It is your task to reforge them into one."

"I don't understand," Gendry said. "Why did you take Oathbreaker if you wanted me to have them all along?"

"They told me they were for the blacksmith at Winterfell," she snapped. "I didn't know that you would be the blacksmith at Winterfell when I left."

"Who are they?"

"It doesn't matter. Now get me out of this thing."

With some effort she lifted her leg and put it on a low bench, pulling up her dress and her breeches to expose the link. Gendry lifted her foot and turned it to find where he and cinched the iron together, and then took his hammer and a small wedge. He positioned the foot to be least and risk, and then with one, swift blow broke the cuff in two. Ayra sighed in relief, and then quickly grabbed the broken link and swung it at Gendry. This time, he wasn't read.

It hit him in the side of the face, not as hard as she could have swung it, but with enough force to send him staggering sideways. The rough edge of the broken cuff grazed his check and he felt wetness on the side of his face. Gendry braced himself for another attack, but instead she just stood over him, grey eyes blazing, holding the manacles like numchucks.

"What was that for!" Gendry said angrily, holding his aching face.

"For locking me up, you stupid bastard!" She said. Then she dropped the irons and whirled around, collecting her cloak and her daggers from the table where Gendry had left them, and pulling on her second boot. As she moved toward the door Gendry called, "Wait!"

She pivoted and looked at him. Her face was flushed and her eyes were full of fire; she was no longer the pale frozen goddess of the night before. He felt his heart fill with emotion, and he stood without being able to say anything for a few beats.

"Please come back," he said.

She hesitated for a second and then ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him fiercely, forcing him to stumble back a step. She broke the kiss and hugged him tightly, leaning on her tip-toes to whisper into his hear.

"The swords are for you." _The swords are for you._

And she was gone.

* * *

**NOTES

In which Gendry and Arya fight, and Gendry just wants to save Arya, and then they make up and it is all fluffy for like a half second. Classic Gendrya, we have arrived. And also now Gendry has the swords.

PS this is really Gendry's story, it was the whole time


	13. 13 Arya

13\. Arya

* * *

When old Nan had told stories of the Horn of Joramun, she had always imagined a sudden cataclysmic event; a deafening loud sound, and then 600 feet of ice crashing down all at once, crashing down and crushing everything and anyone too close. The reality was just as dramatic, but much slower. No one had heard the horn sound; well, she supposed, someone might have, but one at Castle Black; they only knew something had happened when the ice began to crack.

There were times in her childhood when the wind had blown cold enough for a small pond near Winterfell to freeze over; a summer ice, her father called it. She had gone with her brothers to to see it, and they had all walked on the ice, daring each other to go farther and farther out. Arya was the lightest and also the bravest; she would go out towards the center, where the water was deepest and the ice was thinest, until her brothers called for her to come back. She remembered how the ice would crack under her feet; the sound was always louder than she expected, and when they grew frequent she her heart would race.

The cracks on the wall were like peels of thunder, that preceded not lightening but a sickening sort of slipping sound and then a great crash. But this was not summer ice. The wind blew colder than ever than the north, and the cracks in the wall were entirely unnatural.

She had seen the crows fleeing south, driving a handful of wilding prisoners who carrying most of their provisions. They did not stopped for nightfall, nor when two of the wildings fell from exhaustion, nor when even when one of their brothers disappeared in the dark.

A great rage had filled her when she saw them, like the rage that she had felt when she saw Milken's flayed corpse hanging in the courtyard at Winterfell, or when she had heard the singer boast of his treachery. The singer. That was where she had seen the round-cheeked maester. The maester who had sat only a few seats away from the man with the long hair.

She satisfied herself with the brother she and Nymeria had picked off in the dark. He told her about the horn, and the wall, and about the Red Woman and the Dead Woman who had remained behind when the rest had fled. He told her about the great army of the dead that had gathered behind the wall, and was waiting, without fires, or tents, or any sign of life, for the ice that to fall.

—

When she reached it, Castle Black was half buried in ice. Great chucks of it had fallen on either side, so that in many places the wall stood less than half its original height. Four of the towers had been hit and were fallen; only the Silent tower and the Lord Commander's tower remained. The ruins of the winch elevator were sprawled on top of the Flint Barracks, and a mountain of ice completely blocked the gate.

Nymeria refused to go farther than the treeline a kilometer south of wall, and so Arya crossed the frozen plain alone. As she drew nearer, she saw that there was a column of smoke rising from the Lord Commander's tower; too small for the structure itself to be ablaze, but too large for a cookfire. Underneath the smoke was a thin flame like a candle's about the height of a man. As she walked the weak grey light of evening faded into night. The moon was full.

The gate was open. The flame seemed very large now, and its orange light mixed with the pale blue luminance of the wall to light the yard. Arya scaled one of the piles of rubble and ice to climb in through the second floor window of the Lord Commander's Tower. Most of the interior was still intact, although there were signs of great haste. When she reached the top she saw that a great boulder of ice had fallen upon the tower and torn the ceiling apart. The remains of the wooden ceiling had been piled into a fantastically tall bonfire, that shot its flame above where the ceiling had been and far above the battlements. The fire gave off enough heat to make sweat bead on Arya's face, although the shards of the boulder that had fallen around it did not melt.

The woman waiting on the opposite side of the room. She sat on a block of ice only a few feet from the fire, and showed no signs of either cold or heat. Her robe was blood red and cut low enough to reveal her breasts, and her skin, illuminated by the orange light, was alabaster.

"You have come to kill me," she said.

"Yes."

The woman nodded briefly, and seemed to relax. "You must understand something before you do. Look into the flames."

Arya felt the rage well up in her again and she did not want to look, she wanted only to draw her dagger and drive it into this terrible woman's heart. She stared back at the Red Woman and she knew that her face, her true face, could not hide her rage. The woman smiled cruelly.

"It is your fate, child. You cannot run from it."

Arya closed her eyes and felt that her head moved against her will, and when she opened them she was staring into the flame, except it was not a flame but conflagration that filled the room, and she felt that she was on fire and she screamed. There were other figures in the flames; she saw Jon Snow, and her father, and a beautiful woman with long dark hair; she saw her brother Bran crowned in thorns, three dragons, and the a woman with white blonde hair who was crying blood. She saw Gendry, and the two swords, and a tall hooded figure whose face was hidden in shadow. He pulled back his hood with long dead hands, and she saw that where there should be a face there was only a flame.

When she came to she was crying and thrashing on the floor, and the Red Woman was holding her down and stepping on her sleeve which had caught on fire. Arya tried to pull away but Melisandre's grip was like iron.

"No! I won't! I won't!" Arya screamed.

"That is not your choice," the Red Woman thundered, and her voice was like sulfur. Swiftly, she drew the dagger from Arya's boot and raised it toward the night sky. "Rholl'or, I am your servant!" she screamed, and with a terrible smile made two cuts on either side of her face, from the top of her forehead to the underneath her chin. The blood covered her features spilled in a sheet onto Arya's face, and everything went dark.

* * *

When Arya woke fire was out, and the room smelled like burnt flesh. Her heart felt like lead, but she knew there was still a task for her to do. Through the window she could see a figure pacing on the top of the shadow tower. The night was clear, and from the height of the tower in the light of the full moon she could see for miles. In the distance there was a crack and then a terrible scything sound as another sheet of ice fell from the fall.

She put what remained in the room into the bag she carried on her shoulder and descended, climbing out through the window again and crossing the yard. The entry and the interior of the Silent Tower was intact and Arya climbed slowly to the ramparts.

The Lady was pacing in the cold wind, and she stopped when Arya climbed through the hatch leading to the floor below. She looked at Arya without expression, her hand clasped over the slit in her throat. She rasped something inaudible and opened her arms, waiting for an embrace. Ayra walked towards her and stood on her toes to give her mother a kiss.

Her lips were as cold as ice.

* * *

**NOTES

It took me a long time to figure out how to make this part of the story work and then finally I was like "THE WALL DOESNT COME DOWN AT ONCE!" because if there is this big clataclysmic event that really messes with the slow burn of the story, and everything takes so long in westeros, it's not like they can all just hop on dragons and show up to fight the others.


	14. 14 Gendry

14\. Gendry

* * *

The day after Arya left her sister arrived at the gates with forty thousand soldiers.

She had been hiding in the Vale for most of the last two years, the whispers said. The one they called Littlefinger had married and murdered her Tully aunt and had tried to use Sansa to make himself Warden of the North as well as Regent of the Vale; but she had got the better of him and he was freezing in a moon cell in the mountain fortress.

Three months ago a emissary from the Citadel had been sent to all the great houses prophesying the fall of the wall and the calling for every warrior that was able to go north to stand in the second great battle (no one knew what had happened to the emissary sent North, or to any ravens that had brought the tidings). Lady Sansa had convinced Robin Arryn, her cousin to call together the lords of the Vale, and she herself led the assembled army out of the mountains and across the Riverlands, collecting men as she went. Thirty thousand Dornishmen joined her host in the North, led by Arianne Martell of Dorne. They too had responded to the call, and had sailed into White Harbor two weeks prior.

There was no room for the soldiers in the keep of course, especially not with the Northern lords still camped throughout the Godswood and the yards, and the spread across the plain in front of Winterfell, turning the white fields black.

Sansa herself rode though the gates without opposition, and smoothly took control. Gendry watched her arrive from the door of the forge, arms folded. She looked little like the sister he had heard Arya describe. This woman was confident, and direct; her face (beautiful, but so unlike Arya's) was composed and her expression shrewd. She didn't know her sister was alive, Gendry thought. Like Arya, she thought she was the only one left. He went back into the forge.

Gendry had spent the day before making a mold for the greatsword that Oathbreaker and the Widow's Wail would become. Milken had kept many molds of different shapes and sizes, but none large enough for a greatsword; Gendry had had to join his two largest together. That night he had melted the two together; the heat required to work the Valerian steel was much greater than the heat Gendry was used to working with, closer to the level that had been required to melt the obsidian.

When he reheated the metal the morning of Sansa's arrival to shape it, he found that what he had poured was brittle and nearly unusable. The metal snapped in the fire and he had to start again, this time heating the metal to an even higher heat before placing it into the mold. The steel was a sickening red and black, a result, he knew, from a type of dye that Tohbo often used in softer metal. When metal and the mold had cooled, he found it still too brittle to work with. He started to grow frustrated. If Tohbo had split the sword, he should be able to remake it.

He was pouring the metal into the mold for the third time when the maester arrived. Gendry had propped the door open to let out the heat from the extra-hot fire, and the maester hovered awkwardly outside for a few minutes before entering.

"Hello!" said the master, who Gendry saw was still young, with chubby cheeks and a thin beard. He reminded Gendry of Hot Pie. "I heard you were the blacksmith. I mean I can see you are the blacksmith, what I heard was that you have been working with some of the obsidian powder."

"I have," said Gendry, keeping half of his attention on the molten metal in the mold, looking at how it cooled.

"Good! That's good!" said the maester. "Oh, I'm Sam by the way. Samwell Tarly. And you're Gendry. Baratheon." Gendry turned to look at him fully. "I mean, uh, Waters," said the maester hurriedly. "What I mean is, I've been reading everything I can find on obsidian at the Citadel, you see, it's really the only thing that will stop the White Walkers."

"The what?" said Gendry.

"The White Walkers! From behind the wall. Surely you've heard of them here?" Sam looked concerned by the possibility that Gendry hadn't heard of them.

"You mean the things that raise the dead?" said Gendry. "Aye, sure I heard of them. You were the maester that sent that raven a few months back then?"

"Yes, I did! Right before I left. So you see, I don't know much about smithing, I do have a my link—" he thrust a pale steel link at Gendry — " but I'm afraid that's because I did so well on the theory exam, seemed like no one had ever bothered to memorize all the properties of metals — but in any case, I've thought for some time that the proper thing to do would be to mix that dust into the metal and have obsidian swords - the daggers are just too small for combat, and there isn't enough solid obsidian to go around—"

"Yea I tried that, doesn't work," Gendry grunted.

"What do you mean, doesn't work?" said Sam.

"I mean the steel and the powder, they — get hot at different temperatures." Gendry stumbled a bit; he couldn't remember ever explaining smithing in words to anyone, he just knew what he knew. "And so they also cool at different temperatures, and then the metal is worthless, it breaks. Here—" Gendry walked to the cluttered table where the obsidian sword he had tried to forge lay, picked it up and threw it handle first to the maester, who droped it. Sam picked it up and Gendry said, "Hit something with it. Anything."

Sam nervously gripped the weapon and then swung it, not hard, against the stone door frame. The blade gave a short white of protest and cleaved into two jagged halves on impact. "Besides, I'm just one man. I can't make weapons for an army," Gendry added.

Samwell was still staring at the broken sword, looking profoundly disappointed. "Have you tried anything else?" he said.

"Well there's that," Gendry scoffed, pointing to the sword he had coated in obsidian powder in a fit of frustration a week ago. The blade looked like it had been dipped in tar. The maester walked to the tar-sword from Gendry and examined it closely. "This is simple… this could be done by almost anyone, with campfire…"

Gendry felt a stab of annoyance. "You can't be serious. That blade is ridiculous."

Samwell looked at him sharply. "Right now we've got an army with weapons that don't work. Obsidian is the only thing that we can use against the White Walkers—that and Valyrian steel." Gendry looked involuntarily at the greatsword mold, where enough Valyrian steel for three weapons was cooling into long, blood-red block. Sam followed his eyes.

"What—" the maester began, taking a step toward the metal. Gendry took another look and picked out a few fine lines in the red swirls that shouldn't be there. He would have to recast it again. He sighed.

"This is Valyrian steel!" Sam cried excitedly. Gendry shifted uncomfortably. It hadn't occurred to him to worry before, but this maester could make a lot of trouble for him if he tried. "It may be," said Gendry, crossing his arms and setting his jaw.

"Where—where did you get it? And why is — red like that?" said Sam. He seemed disconcerted, perhaps because at his full height Gendry towered nearly a foot over him. And the cut on his face from Arya's cuffs must look bad, he thought.

"It doesn't matter where I got it," Gendry said

"Well you must have got it from somebody, I mean, there only maybe forty Valyrian blades in the seven Kingdoms, and to have enough steel for a Greatsword, unless you know how to forge it, but you couldn't, oh, that could mean three more knights with real weapons, I'll have to tell Lady Sansa—"

Sam was pacing nervously back and forth, gesticulating absent-mindedly with the broken but still very sharp obsidian steel sword. Gendry's annoyance grew until it bubbled over, and he picked up the second sword from the table and brought it to the chubby maester's throat. Sam froze and dropped the broken sword on the dusty floor of the forge.

"Look. I get that you've done all sorts of book learning and think you know all sorts of things about how things work," Gendry said, staring the quivering maester. "I'm sure you want to know how a bastard came to have Valyrian steel. All I'm going to tell you is that the steel was given to me, and given to me for one purpose only. And I'm not going to leave this forge until I've completed that task. Do you understand?"

Sam nodded. Gendry could see that he was sweating profusely, but he stood his ground, and as Gendry watched, set his mouth into a firm line.

"All right. But you have to promise me something—that you'll fight. The wall's going to come down any day now — it's in the prophecies, and we're la-late, so terribly late. We missed the signs, and we're going to need all of the help we can ge-get."

Gendry's eyes softened. He liked this man, he was sincere. He'd clearly been through a lot. Gendry lowered his sword, feeling somewhat guilty, but too stubborn to apologize, turned back to his work. Sam's shoulders slumped forward in relief when the steel was taken from his neck, his breath coming in great gulps, and he moved almost involuntarily toward the door. He paused in the open frame and turned back toward Gendry, who was already engrossed in his task.

"You do look a lot like him, you know," Sam said,

"Renly?" said Gendry, without looking up.

"No—Stannis."

* * *

After that, Gendry lost track of time.

Valyrian steel was difficult to work with, he knew. Only blacksmiths from Qohor knew the secret, but Gendry had trained under a blacksmith from Qohor. When he was in Tohbo Mott's shop he had only seen his master work with Valyrian steel once, to reforge a thick dagger into two light knives for a Southron house. Gendry had been responsible for folding the steel. He remembered spending much longer on it than he had expected to for a reforging job; Mott had told him to keep folding and refolding until he told him to stop, and he hadn't told him to stop for a day and half a night.

He tried this technique on the greatsword, heating the metal until it red hot and folding it upon itself, again and again to remove impurities. The sword was so long and the steel so strong that it took him a long time to complete each fold. He worked an entire day, but by the end he saw that the metal the next day, he saw that it was still unsuitable for shaping. Next he worked through the day and into the night, but still metal was flawed.

Calin started bringing him food; the boy hadn't spoken to him since the night he saw Gendry's fight with Arya, and he looked scared and somewhat ashamed when he came to him the first time, holding out a bowl of mush and a thick slab of bread from the kitchens like a white flag. Gendry was grateful and thanked the boy. Calin remained in the forge, nervously watching as Gendry ate. Gendry asked him what he wanted. "Well, you see Ser… " Calin had never called him that before. "They're making all th' boys move outa of the castle, to sleep wi- with the Dornishmen. I tol' them I was your apprentice but they dinna believe me an.." After that, Calin resumed his duties in the forge, mainly feeding the fire and completing some smaller tasks that the castle people requested, while Gendry focused on the greatsword. He knew that he was acting strangely, and that Calin was telling stories about the six foot, blood-red weapon that Gendry hammered at day and night.

He had begun to shape the sword, something he could do only after folding the metal for a full day and a night. He completed the greatsword for the first time the night Barth arrived, but when he tempered it in water he saw that the metal was unstable, and the blade shattered on the first stroke. The next time, he decided that he needed warmer water, but the again the tempering failed.

Sometime later, Barth came by and and nervously watched from the doorway. Gendry had been folding the sword for more than a day and a night and was caked in soot and sweat. He glanced at Barth and returned to his work.

Barth made a sound of exasperation and stepped into the forge. "Gendry, the boys are worried about you. Calin says you haven't left the forge for nearly a week. And—you've been refusing requests. We've got an army out there, we need a working blacksmith!" Gendry grunted and brought his hammer down particularly hard on the greatsword, which sprayed sparks and sang, a clear, round note. Barth recoiled. "Gendry, please…" he said, and then in a lower voice: "Is it—that thing? Is it making you do this?" He craned his neck, scanning the tables and trying to seen into the backroom, the door to which was slightly ajar. "She left." said Gendry shortly.

That night, the sword shattered again. Gendry threw his hammer at the wall in frustration, chipping the stone and sending some old iron tools clattering to the ground. He needed to get out. He wrapped the pieces of the greatsword the cloth Arya had brought them in and strapped the metal to his back, using an old piece of leather to fashion a makeshift bandolier, and slipped out of the castle and into the night.

Sansa, it seemed, was a natural warlord. He had heard from Calin that her first act at Winterfell had been to charge Lord Karstark with raising what little of the North remained, and bringing them to Winterfell, at the same time establishing herself as the rightful lord of the northern vessels and eliminating one of the most dangerous political elements from her court.

She had appointed Samwell to be her weapons master, and he had ordered the troops who were spread across the plain to learn to fight with fire and obsidian. They spent their days cutting down the forests that encircled the plain to fashion long spears with torches on the end, designed to pierce and then ignite wights. All of the obsidian they had dug from Winterfell had been made into daggers, but Gendry knew that there would still not be enough for a twentieth of this army.

Their fires stretched out for several square miles, turning the winter blue landscape orange. He could see, as he walked through the tents, hundreds of swords heating in campfires. There were short, broad northern blades, and the longer, delicate swords that Gendry knew were favored in the Vale of Arryn, and curved scythes that the realized must belong to the Dornishmen. A thousand beautiful burning blades.

It wasn't until he was halfway across the camp that he realized with horror what they were doing. A red priest was chanting over a Dornish fire - he could tell by the blades, and Gendry paused to watch. The priest's chant grew louder and the men took their swords from the fire, and carefully sprinkled each with a black powder that glinted in the firelight. Obsidian. The maester, he thought angrily, had convinced these men to destroy their steel.

Just then Gendry heard a noise that was like a wind rising, but it was not the wind; a collective cry came rushing through the camp like a wave. "The wall!" panted a northern man-at-arms who came running frantically past the Dornish fire. "The wall has fallen!" The priest's chant turned into a wail and the Dornishmen stood, blades still hot in their hands. There was something coming, and Gendry withdrew into the shadow between two tents to make way. It was a group of thirty or so men wearing ragged black cloaks. There clothing and hair were caked with snow, and they looked dirty and exhausted. A massive crowd had formed behind them and was pushing them forward.

"The wall has fallen!" shouted one of ragged men. He had a rough face and a gray-brown beard. "We have come to warn you—aughh!" The man had been hit by a piece of ice that had been lobbed from the camp and stumbled sideways before regaining his balance. "Coward!" came a shout from the crowd. The cry was repeated and ice began to rain on the brothers—Gendry realized that they were brothers of the Night's Watch—from both sides. The crows broke into a run, aiming for the gates to Winterfell, and passed out of Gendry's sight.

* * *

He started again on the greatsword the next day. Time was running short now, and he needed to work faster; all he thought about was steel and fire, all he saw was the blade, its metal shifting and reforming in ever more subtle patterns, always, always tinted with the color of blood. Blood. Blood was warm, and thick; it would hold the heat better than water. That was what he needed, he thought as he swung.

A dim memory came to him: blood on the floor of the forge, in the dust. Tobho had not let him finish the Valyrian steel dagger, but had sent him away, and when he had returned there was blood on the floor of the forge. His master had told him to clean it, and he had asked where it came from. Mott had told him not to ask stupid questions.

If Calin came or went, he did not know; if there was food, he ate; when he could work no longer, he slept. "Queen Margery and Lady Shireen have come," someone whispered, when he had fallen in fatigue on the bench. He stirred. "The army is moving north tomorrow, to try to stop the wights by the crossing of the Last River." Gendry sat up suddenly roaring and Calin screamed and ran from the room, dropping a plate of food on the ground. The sword was still hot on the anvil from before his slumber, and Gendry took up his hammer and swung.

When he finished heating the blade for the last time, he took the burning sword from the fire and carried it out of the forge across the yard. The last light was dying on the horizon, and Winterfell was fast fading into night. He heard a woman scream but did not pause, making his way towards the stables. The horse that he had ridden to Winterfell was still stabled there, among many others; Gendry had effectively given him to the castle when he became blacksmith. The horse reared when he saw the six-foot red sword and tried to back away, but Gendry grabbed his bridle, and plunged the blade into the horse's chest.

The horse screamed, a terrible, high-pitched sound, but Gendry held the blade and the bridle firm. Warm blood poured from the horse's chest, on to his hands and his boots, and splattering on his face. Only when the blood stopped flowing did Gendry remove the sword.

He left the stables and walked back into the courtyard, where a small crowd had gathered. He heard several screams. The greatsword was dripping blood and still glowing faintly, and he knew that his face was covered in blood as well, blue eyes wild. A knight stepped into the yard, sword raised, blocking his return to the forge. He was as large as Gendry, and his face was utterly ruined, a mass of burns on one side and a long scar running down the other. His hair was lanky and unkempt, but his stance was strong.

"You!" Gendry said, the blood and the heat running through his veins, along with something like triumph. He adjusted the greatsword into a fighting stance and raised it to swing.

"STOP!" said a female voice.

It was Sansa Stark. She stepped into the middle of the yard. Her auburn hair piled elegantly on top of her head, and she wore a simple fur-lined robe. "Milady, step back, it's not safe," the Hound muttered, and there was a softness in his gruff voice that made Gendry pause.

"They told me the blacksmith had gone mad, but I did not think it was the type of madness that would endanger this keep," Sansa said smoothly. "Sandor, do you know him?" The Hound kept his eyes on Gendry. "He was one of the Brotherhood, milady. He — he was there when I found your sister. They had been together for some time, I think. He's one of Robert's bastards, I'm sure of it."

Gendry's blood boiled. "Found her?" he said. "You mean TOOK her. She was safe and you—" Gendry couldn't wait for words any longer, and instead he swung, the massive greatsword sweeping down toward Sandor Clegane's ruined face and spraying blood where it went. The big knight brought up his sword to parry the Valerian steel. When the two blades connected they made a great clanging noise, and then with a heartwrenching crack the Valyrian steel rent into two pieces. To Gendry the break in the blade felt like a mortal wound, and he fell to his knees. Sandor brought his sword to his throat.

"I didn't kill Arya Stark, you fool," he said.

"I know," Gendry spat.

Behind him, a man had run to where top half of the shattered sword lay—the chubby-cheeked maester. "It's still warm," he said. The bloody blade was in fact glowing faintly. "This is blood magic," he said in an awed voice.

"What do you mean, Sam?" said Sansa. "Oh, I'm not sure milady - you see, like I told you this is Valyrian steel, I don't know where he got it, and no one knows how to reforge Valyrian steel except the weaponmasters of Qohor. I tried to find out how they they did it, in Oldtown, but it was a secret, so it's not in the books—"

"Sam."

"Right, but there were a few strange references to blood, so I think the reforging somehow needed —blood magic."

"That is Valyrian Steel?" Sansa said, walking towards the blade that Sam held, and making a face when she got close. Sam nodded. "Where did you get Valyrian steel," Sansa said, wheeling towards Gendry.

"It was given to me, milady."

"By whom?" said Sansa.

"I was given two swords, that were made by my master, Tohbo Mott in King's Landing - for the Lannister. Before there were two blades, there was one. I believe it was called Ice, milady. My master is dead. I am the only one in Westeros who can forge this sword anew."

"My father's sword," she said quietly. "You didn't answer my question. Who gave you the Lannister swords?"

Gendry gritted his teeth. He couldn't explain. He could never explain. "Someone I trust. Please, milady. This is my task." He looked at her, begging. He didn't want to live, not exactly. But he needed his life. He needed to finish this.

"Shall I kill him, Lady Sansa," said Clegane harshly. Gendry felt the blade push into his neck, and some of his own blood mixed with the horse's.

Sansa looked back at Gendry, thinking. Then her eyes flashed to Clegane's, and she spoke in a clear, confident voice. "No. We are here to fight against the Dead, Ser. This is not a time to kill the living. Leave him. We march tomorrow, and he will not bother us where we go."

Sandor grunted and jerked the sword from Gendry's throat. "As you wish milady." Gendry bent over the broken hilt of the greatsword, which was still larger than most swords he had touched. Sam walked to him quickly and pressed the second, blood-covered shard into his hands. "I'll make sure you have another horse," he whispered.

Gendry vomited.

* * *

The next morning the sun did not rise.

Gendry had washed himself when he returned to the forge, and then slept, a long deep sleep, longer than he had slept since Arya had arrived. When he woke Winterfell was empty, except for a few children and elderly that had stayed behind. Even the women had marched, Gendry thought. This was truly the end.

He felt strangely calm when he set back upon the steel, beginning the endless folding and refolding that he had done so many times before. His arm felt strong and his aim was true, and the steel sang for him in the way it had not for a long while. He kept the fire hot and the door open, and the frosty night kept the air in the forge fresh.

He did not look to see if the horse that Sam had promised was waiting. He could not bear the thought of doing that to an animal again, although he knew that when he needed too, he would. There was sun to mark the hours, and there were no people to interrupt his work. There was only the anvil, and the hammer, and the fire. He put more care into shaping the blade than he had ever done before, and looking at the untempered steel he knew that this was the best work he had ever done, and possibly the best work he would ever do.

The wind had picked up outside and was howling past and through the door, blowing at the flames. He had just placed the blade in the fire for the final time and went to shut it. He needed an even heat.

"Well met, Gendry, son of a King."

Gendry spun, leaving the door open. In the corner of the forge, on one of the stools, sat a woman. Her hair and her cloak were a violent red, and her skin was very pale. Her dress was cut into a deep V and around her neck was a choker with a red ruby. She looked at Gendry with hard, glinting eyes, and a half smile that was eerie at the dawn of an endless night.

"Who are you?" said Gendry. How had she gotten in? He felt a wild urge to harm this woman, to throw her out into the cold. It was too late for distraction.

"I am Melisandre," she said, smiling slightly wider. "Priestess of R'hollor."

"Stannis's Red Woman," said Gendry, returning slowly to the fire. Thoros had spoken of her in the Brotherhood; he said that she had been known in Myr and a great worker of magic even before he arrived in Westeros, and that is she had chosen him, Stannis had a powerful ally. Still, she had no place here.

"Stannis is dead," she said. "Do you follow the Lord of Light, Ser Gendry."

"I do and I do not, mildady," he said, gritting his teeth. "I cannot believe that he is a false god, having seen what I have seen." He thought of the Lady, tall and gaunt and gray, and shivered. "But I have never seen his power produce anything but harm, and therefore I do not pray to him."

"I see." Melisandre pursed her lips, but did not lose her look of amusement. Gendry was growing angry. He wanted the priestess to leave, but he did not want the priestess to jeopardize his work. He bent back to the forge.

"I did not have a choice either, to believe," Melisandre continued. "I was sold to the Red God when I was but a child. For many years I hated the Lord of Light and his servants for taking me from my family, and for forcing me to sacrifice my body for the service of the Lord. But then I began to have visions, to see shapes in the flames. At first, my vision was always the same. A tall, dark haired man, with a flaming sword, leading an army against the dead. They told me that I the man I saw was Azor Ahai returned, and that it was my destiny to serve him." She paused. "I trained for many years. I learned the ancient craft of Asshai, and became a shadowbinder. I learned power and the tricks of flame. And every day I looked into the flames for hours, waiting for a sign to tell me that it was time to serve my Lord. That moment came. I saw the Red Keep ,a and I saw his eyes, blue, so blue. I travelled across the sea, and I searched, and when I found Stannis, I knew."

The blade was nearly heated through now, and he would need to temper it.

"But I was wrong," she said. "Stannis was not Azor Ahai. You are."

Gendry's attention snapped to her. She looked back at him, eyes wide and unblinking, the ruby at her throat glowing eerily. "And my duty is not to serve him. My duty is to die for him."

Gendry swept his hand around the forge. "I'm sorry," he said scornfully. "There is nothing to die for here."

Melisandre stood, her expression wild and the ruby now burning. ""The sword you forge is Lightbringer, and you the hero that will wield it, to end the long night and defeat the Great Other. The sword cannot be tempered by water," she said, her voice rising in a terrible crescendo. "You know it must be tempered by blood. But it cannot be tempered by an animal's blood. Not this sword."

She fell to her knees in front of Gendry and loosed the tie that held her cloak, throwing her head back so that her breast was exposed to him. Gendry stared at the woman below him. It seemed to him that her eyes were at once both fire and ice. He did not hesitate. He took the sword from the fire, and drove it into her her heart.

Only as the sword entered her breast did he notice the small, curved birthmark below her left collarbone. She screamed as the greatsword ripped into her body, and as she screamed her face changed until he was looking not at Melisandre, but Arya. His eyes met hers and he saw that they were grey but not cold, fire in ice. He watched as her brow, contorted in pain relaxed and her mouth went slack, her head falling back on her neck. But the scream went on, and dimly he realized that it was his.

* * *

**NOTES

And finally we get to the climax. "Blood Steel" gettit? Yep, Gendry is Azor Ahai, which I realized i have repeatedly misspelled in various places, maybe at some point I will fix that.

So Yep, basically this whole thing was about Gendry getting to be the hero. I mean, Gendry is just great and he's the only smith in the series, and he was born in King's Landing where there is plenty of salt and smoke.

And Gendry being Azor Ahai means that Arya needs to be Nissa Nissa, but even tho Gendry does go pretty whack he doesn't go whack enough to kill his boo, but conveniently Arya is faceless so there can be tricks. It works out so well that that sometimes I wonder if GRRM planned it this way, but then I'm like no, I'm a hopeless shipper with a pipe dream. sigh.

PS the Melisandre incarnation was inspired largely by the TV series, although for many other reasons this needs to be a strictly book world, so she and Gendry never met.

Don't worry, there are another couple chapters, I'm just not quite finished with them yet.


End file.
